The Ship Errant

Chapter Nineteen

"She has very nice manners," Carialle commented, as Keff produced biscuits and cheese from the sythesizer and put them in the middle of the small table. "She looked skeptical when you offered her your goulash, as if she wasn't expecting it to taste good, but she didn't say a word. Pleasantly surprised, to judge by her expression, and her pulse."

"She's not like the others," Keff said, smelling the wine. It was ready at last.

He held up the decanter, offering it to Mirina. The woman held her glass up for him to fill, and gave him a luminous smile. Keff smiled back, feeling his pulse pound harder. She had smooth and clear skin, with about a dozen freckles dusted over her nose. Her irises were the color of cognac but were rimmed with sable-brown like her lashes. He guessed her age to be about the same as his. One, no, two silver hairs glinted in her straight, dark-brown hair, but that was the only sign of age. Her round face was youthful, though the expression in her eyes was a sorrowful millenium old. He watched her curiously and wondered. At a big space station, with a thousand women around him, would he have noticed her? And yet she was very attractive, intelligent, and cultured, in spite of the company she kept.

"Am I overreacting, Cari?" he asked, under his breath. "It's been a while since I've seen a pretty woman."

There was a momentary pause, but Carialle's voice was perfectly even, without a hint of sarcasm. "I don't think so, Keff. You're a grown-up. But watch your step, eh?"

Keff smiled at Mirina, and stood up. "Why don't we move over here to finish the wine? The crash couches are much more comfortable." He extended a hand to her and settled her in one reclining chair. He sat down in the other and propped his feet on the console.

"This is delicious," Mirina said, sipping her wine. "And that synthesizer must be absolutely top of the line."

"I think so," Keff said, casually. "I'm not sure. I eat anything. Mostly health shakes." At that, Mirina did make a face, and Keff grinned.

"So," he asked, pouring himself some wine. He set the bottle on the console. "Were you born into the business like your partner? The way the two of you act I assume he's your partner."

Mirina corrected him quickly. "Not really partners," she said, with a strong emphasis on the word. "We've worked closely together for about eight years." The woman took a hasty sip of wine, then paused to smile over it. Not long enough to have been involved with Carialle, Keff thought, his heart sinking. She'd hardly have heard tales of a single wreck salvage a dozen years before she came.

"You're not much like him," Keff said, encouragingly. "You've had an education."

"The colloquialisms," she said, with a wicked smile. "You caught that. Yes. He was furious!"

"And some formal training? CW?"

"Good guess, Sir Knight," Carialle said. "Her pulse leaped just then. Dig deeper."

But Mirina had recovered herself quickly.

"That, my dear, was a long time ago," she said, lifting her glass. Only a few drops remained by this time, so she held it out for a refill.

"I'm glad you appreciate it," Keff said. He hoisted himself out of the deep padding, feeling his overtaxed muscles protest, and came over with the bottle. "The wine, I mean. Watch out, or you'll get tipsy. You're not from the same place as Bisman?"

"No. You took the paintings away," Mirina said, pointedly changing the subject. "I wanted to see that spacescape again. I've been to Dimitri."

"Oh, is that where it is?" Keff asked. Mirina nodded. "Never been there myself. Well, it was starting to rain."

"I know," the woman said, and showed a trifle of embarrassment. "Sorry we didn't help you."

Keff shrugged. "Competitors."

"I might like to buy that painting," Mirina said, temptingly.

"No," Carialle said, at once, then relented. "… Well, perhaps it wouldn't do any harm. I've had my joy from it. Tell her all right."

"Certainly," Keff said, smiling at his guest. "I'll give you a good price."

Mirina looked very pleased, but suddenly her face fell, and she took another sip of wine. "Never mind," she said. "I can't. I… I've run through my budget. I bought… something expensive."

"Ah," Keff said, wondering what had suddenly troubled her so deeply. She was staring at a spot on the wall. Keff glanced over his shoulder and wondered if she had seen through the holographic display. No, it was still intact. If anything, Carialle had enhanced the details to make it look even more solid. He cleared his throat, determined to lighten the mood. He went back to his own couch and stretched out luxuriously. "Say, aren't you afraid I might take advantage of your lowered resistance, to send a message to your Melange?"

"Send away," Mirina said, watching him with an amused glint in her eyes. "Couldn't be any worse than what's already happened to me."

"Oh? Confession's good for the soul," Keff said, encouragingly.

Her mind snapped back to whatever had been occupying it, and she stared at nothing again.

"Do I still have a soul?" she asked. Keff opened his mouth, then shut it. The wine had affected her more strongly than he'd guessed. Thunder rumbled, and Keff glanced at the external monitor for the flash of lightning. The storm must be directly overhead. The woman shivered. "I hate rain," she said. "I hate weather. I hate being stuck on a planet. I think I'm only happy out in space. If I had to stay planetbound for the rest of my life I'd kill myself."

"I know what you mean," Keff said, sincerely. "There's nothing like it."

"Yes. I don't want to do anything else," she said. "It's nice enough here, but I want to get out there again." Her eyes tilted up toward the ceiling, and the unseen reaches of space.

"She's a born spacer," Carialle said. "Just a little drunk, I think, but a born spacer."

"Don't you ever get lonely, traveling by yourself?" Mirina asked.

"Not at all," Keff said, sweeping a hand around. "I have…" he glanced at where Carialle's pillar should have been visible, and wasn't. "… I have all this," he finished.

"It's beautiful," she said, never noticing his hesitation. "You make me wish I had a setup like it."

"Aren't you happy where you are?"

"Are you mad?" she asked, with a pitying scowl. "If it wasn't for the Thelerie, well…"

"What about the Thelerie?" Keff asked, quickly.

Mirina looked at him hard. "Are you from Central Worlds?" she asked.

"Reformed," Keff said, with a pious expression that made her laugh, but she was still serious.

"They're a kind, innocent people. I don't want them exploited, do you understand me?"

"Isn't that what you're doing?" Keff asked, very gently.

"No!" Then, more honestly, she added, "Not entirely. We trade with them, but they get value from us, too. My program…"

Keff leaned up on one elbow, as if to listen better. Mirina stopped in midsentence, realizing that this dashing, handsome man was pumping her. Keff saw he had gone too far.

"This bottle's empty," he said, swinging himself upright with a casual show of strength that made Mirina's eyes light with appreciation. "Let's see what else is in the cellar. Look at that!" Keff dusted down a squarish container with a glass stopper covered with wax. "I didn't think I had any of this left."

"Your nose ought to be a foot long by now," Carialle said. But Mirina didn't seem to mind. The twenty-five-year-old brandy went down as neatly as the wine had, sip by sip. It loosened up whatever tight grip she'd had on herself, and in time, Keff's careful questions began to elicit answers.

"The program to supply the Thelerie with communication equipment was yours?"

"Yes," she said. "The ones who decided to come home again had seen us using commlinks, thought it was a good idea. No mass communication at all on this planet. Once you were out of sight, you were gone. It was cheap, and they were so grateful! You've got some nice comm circuitry among your merchandise. If the price was right, that is."

"Might knock it down for a friend," Keff said. "I don't have to make anything on it for a good cause."

"I don't care, particularly. The profit's not mine any more anyway. It's the Melange's, and Aldon's. What the hell," Mirina said, expansively, "for the Thelerie, too."

His blue eyes twinkled with understanding. Mirina was reminded of what she used to think Charles looked like. Careful, girl, she told herself fiercely. He's the enemy. But he was very attractive, she thought, looking at him from under her lashes as she took a sip of the fire-smooth brandy. In return, he gave her a top-to-toe sweep of his eyes that made her gasp for its very insouciance. Unconsciously she shifted position, straightening her shoulders and tilting her head to one side. Great stars, I'm acting like a coquette! And yet, it was so nice to relax for a change.

"How long have you been… involved with the griffins?" Keff asked.

She wrinkled her eyebrows, trying to place the reference, then her face cleared as she grinned. "I never thought of that, but they do look like griffins. Did heraldic beasts ever really live?"

"I don't think so," said Keff.

"Not much of a student of history, is she?" Carialle asked.

"Don't be a snob, Cari," Keff muttered. "How'd you come to ship out with Bisman?"

"I came on board eight years ago, right after Charles died. Zonzalo-my brother-fell in with them. He thought flying with reivers was a great adventure. I found him on one of their lousy bases, half-starved, with leaky air-recirculation equipment, no organization. So pathetic, I stayed," Mirina said, staring into the amber liquid in her glass. "Shouldn't have stayed but," her shoulders slumped, "but I had nowhere to go, nowhere to take him to."

"Didn't you have to go back to your job, or your school?" Keff asked. "You know your way around ships, I can tell. A valuable employee like you."

"Lost my position," Mirina said, more shortly than she'd intended. "I've been an idiot, but the Thelerie have been wonderful. They're grateful for everything we do. I've had to force Bisman not to lead them into using polluting machinery. They've got plenty of physical strength and simple machines to take care of motive-force needs, plus, dammit! they can fly. No travel problems. The electronics just help with communications."

"She's really thought this out," Carialle said. "Here's the organizing mind."

"I'd give anything if she wasn't involved in a pirate ring," Keff murmured under his breath.

Mirina wasn't really paying attention. "What did you say?"

"Very well thought out," Keff said hastily. "You've done good work. You thought of everything. You must be some organizer. I, uh, I think there's room in this for both of our groups. I can't say the Circuit won't cut into your parts business, but I'm willing to take it to the Lady over the ethical framework you've built."

She looked grateful and annoyed at the same time. "We'll want a cut," she said. "We've got expenses. Overhead."

"So've we," Keff said, nonchalantly playing the game.

"We'll negotiate it," Mirina said, compromising. "Well, Aldon will. I… don't suppose there's room in your organization? For a good planner?"

Keff looked surprised. "Thinking of moving on?"

"I have to," she said.

"Being forced out?"

"No. I just can't stand it any longer. The deaths, and all. Now that everything's at about subsistence level Aldon is getting uncontrollable. I never condoned death; I've always tried to prevent it. I hate death. Can't take any more of it in my life."

"How mysterious for someone in her profession," Carialle said.

"Are you going back to what you did before? Were you a pilot?"

"More than that," Mirina said, then thought about it. "Well, and less." The whole accident came back to her, as it did in her nightmares. She had a final, horrible vision of the dock crew trying to spray down the burning ship, the pillar in the control room slagging into molten metal. All the skin on her hands and face were burned, as she tried to fight her way back aboard, to save him if she could. They held her back. They kept her out! Charles!

She let out a cry that brought Keff to his feet in surprise, then fell into heartbroken sobbing. Keff hurried over and sat down next to her on the molded chair's arm. She was beating her fist on her knee. He captured the hand and held it tightly between his own hands.

"I'm sorry," she said, looking up with tears sheeting down her cheeks. "I'm sorry."

"What's the matter?" Keff asked, squeezing her hand. "Why couldn't you have gotten another berth with someone else?"

"Never anyone else like Charles," she sobbed, turning her face into his tunic front. Keff was so nice and sympathetic, but he wasn't Charles. Charles remained dead.

"Go on, tell me about it," Keff said. He felt for a handkerchief, and ended up handing her the napkin that was tucked between her hip and the seat cushion.

In between sobs, Mirina managed to tell the story of the accident.

"… I guess my supervisor was right-no, I know he was. I was insubordinate, and I should have stayed in therapy, but my brother was in danger! Why couldn't they have understood that?"

Keff's heart melted with sympathy. Over the top of her head, he looked automatically toward Carialle's pillar. He wrapped his arms around the woman and held her tightly.

"Keff, she was a brawn!" Carialle said. "What was the brain's name? Charles? Yes, I remember it. You ought to, as well. Charles CM-702. M must have stood for Mirina. It was a freak accident. Combination of a hazardous cargo, an accident on the loading dock, and bad handling by the ground crew. If they hadn't been at a space station, the brawn would have died, too. The last thing that Charles did before his shell melted down was to order one of his servo robots to pull the brawn out of the burning wreckage. There was hardly anything left for the authorities to identify. Now I know why I didn't recognize her name. It's Mirina Velasquez-Donegal. She and her brother must have shortened it when they adopted noms-de-guerre."

"I have heard of the accident," Keff said, out loud. "I knew a brainship had died. Never heard what happened to the brawn."

"Hah!" Mirina said bitterly, into his sleeve. "Exactly."

Keff glanced toward Carialle's pillar.

"They let her down, too," Carialle said, just as bitterly, in Keff's ear. "For all they say we're a valuable, respected resource, the bureaucrats still treat us like animated furniture, shells and softskins alike, damn them."

"Horrible! We have to help her."

"We can't," Carialle said, flatly.

"She's been the only moral influence these people have had," Keff said. "It could have been far worse if she hadn't been here."

"But why was she here at all? Why didn't she take her brother and go?"

"You heard her," Keff whispered urgently. "She was needy. She'd had a mental breakdown-and she had to get over it by herself. You know what that feels like."

"I certainly do," Carialle said, every memory of her own accident coming back to her. "But what would our word do for her? Shorten her prison sentence? But no, she wouldn't last in a prison. She said she would rather die than be groundbound. I think she means it. We should separate her from these people anyhow."

"We'll have to think of something," Keff said, frustratedly. He realized Mirina had been talking.

"… Wanted help, just a little help," Mirina was saying, a little incoherently. "They figured I'd ask for it when I needed it. But how would I know when? I was just trying to survive, feeling it was my fault when I knew it wasn't. Hot white explosives. No time. Charles saved my life."

"Shh, I know," Keff said. He was torn between worrying about Carialle's mental state, and the growing concern for a fellow brawn. Mirina seemed as if she had been waiting for somebody to talk to for a long time. He just stayed beside her, stroking her hair, and occasionally dabbing the tears off her cheeks with the edge of his sleeve. Poor Mirina, carrying a weight like this all by herself for eight years. He kissed the top of her head, rocking her gently like a child.

"I knew Charles slightly," Carialle said, solemnly. "He was a stodgy old 700. He thought I was too radical. I thought he was embalmed. I'd never met his brawn."

Keff opened his mouth to reveal their secret, but Carialle, reading his mind, stopped him short.

"Don't," she said. "She's been part of this piracy operation."

"We have to help her," Keff insisted.

"Why? She has no loyalty to the CW."

"But she was one of us. A brain chose her as his brawn. That means she had that special something. She's… less than half a person now. She's broken. You know what that means."

"I know, oh, I know," Carialle said, her voice rising almost to a keen. She sighed. "You win, Sir Knight. I'll try to think of something we can do for her, some way to help."

Thunder crashed, loudly enough to be heard through the noise insulation. Keff felt Mirina tremble in his arms. He stood up and held out a hand to her. She looked up at him, her caramel eyes drowned with tears, and put her hand in his.

"Perhaps you'd better stay the night," Keff said.