The Ship Who Sang

Dramatic Mission

Helva turned the sound down, pleased that all the embryo-tube racks and the great beakers of nutrients were being pulled out, but not at all pleased with the mauling the crewmen were giving her in the process.

They didn't really need to add to the scars already made by the metal frames on her decks, or the strains of spilled nutrients on her bulkheads. But she was silent because even the pilot's cabin showed unmistakable marks of long tenure and Kira Falernova had been a tidy person. However, Helva had no wish to go to Regulus and show this shoddy interior to whichever brawns were waiting to team up with her.

She said as much to the other brain ship sitting near her, to one side of the commercial pads at the Nekkar spaceport.

"That's a silly waste of credit, Helva," Amon, the TA-618, replied, his voice slightly peevish. "How'd'you know your new brawn will like your taste? Let him, or her, pay for it out of his quarters' allowance. Really, Helva, use some sense or you'll never buy free. And I don't see why you're so eager to be saddled with a brawn anyway."

"I like people."

Amon made a rude noise. Since he'd landed, he had steadily complained to her about his mobile partner's deficiencies and shortcomings. Helva had reminded herself that Amon and Trace had been together over 15 standard years and that was said to be the most difficult period of any long association.

"When you've had a series of brawns aboard you as long as I have, you won't be so philanthropic. And when you know what your brawn is going to say before he says it, then you'll have a little idea of the strain I'm currently under."

"Kira Falernova and I were 3 years on this storkrun. . ."

"Doesn't signify. You knew it was a short-term assignment. You can put up with anything on that basis. It's the inescapable knowledge that you've got to go on and on, 25 to 30 years' worth. . ."

"If he's all that bad, opt a change," Helva said.

"And add a cancellation penalty to what I'm already trying to pay?"

"Oh, I forgot." Her reply, Helva realized the moment the words were out of her mouth, was not very politic. Among his many grievances with the galaxy at large, the extortionate price of repairs and maintenance made by outworld stations ranked high. Amon had run afoul of a space-debris storm and the damage had required a replating of half his nose. Central Worlds had insisted that the cause was his negligence, so it was therefore not a service-incurred or compensable accident.

"Furthermore, if I opted," Amon went on sourly, "I'd have to take whoever is up next for assignment with no refusal right."

"That's too true."

"I'm not fat with double bonuses from grateful Nekkarese."

Helva swallowed a fast retort to such an unfair remark and meekly said she hoped that things would soon look up. Amon wanted a sympathetic listener, not an adviser.

"You take the advice of one who's been around, Helva," Amon went on, mollified by her contrition, "and take every solo assignment you can get. Rack up bonuses while you can. Then you'll be in a position to bargain. I'm not. Oh, here he comes!"

"He's in a hurry, too."

"Wonder what lit his jets." Amon sounded so disagreeable that Helva began to wonder just how much the brawn was at fault. Brain ships were people, too.

Just then, Helva could her the brawn's excited greeting over the open ship-to-ship band.

"Amon, man, get us cleared and lifted. We got to get back to Regulus Base on the double. I just heard. . ."

The band went dead.

It was so like Amon to be selfish with good news, too, that Helva did not take offense. Good luck to him, she thought as she turned on the outside scanners and watched him lift off. If he did get a good assignment and the delivery bonus, he could pay off his debt. He might even resolve most of his problems with his brawn. The man had seemed nice enough when he'd paid a courtesy call on Kira and herself the day they arrived at Nekkar. But it was petty of him Helva thought. . . If the brawn had heard, the news could not come via tight beam.

"Nekkar Control, XH-834 calling."

"Helva? Had my hand on the switch to call you. Our ground crew treating you right? Anything you want them to do, you just let 'em know," answered the affable com man.

Considering Nekkar's recent disaster, you'd think they'd be as sour as Amon.

"I was wondering if you could tell me why the TA-618 left in such a hurry."

"Say, yes, that's something, isn't it? Never know who's around in the next system over, do you? I always said, a galaxy's got room for all kinds. But who'd ever think people. . . I guess you could call 'em people. . . would want any old archaic plays. Can you imagine that?" and infuriatingly the com man chuckled.

Amon had problems knowing ahead of time what his man'd say? Helva thought, impatiently waiting for this jovial soul to say anything worth listening to.

"Well, not really, because you haven't told me what you heard yet," Helva cut in as the man seemed likely to continue editorializing.

"Oh, sorry. Thought you ships'd all have your ears. . . oh, pardon the slip. . . to the rumor-block. Well, now, generally my sources are very reliable and this came to me from two sources, as I was telling Pilot Trace. A survey ship out Beta Corvi way registered some regulated-energy emissions. Pinpointed them to the sixth planet which had. . . of all improbabilities. . . a methane-ammonia atmosphere. Never heard of any sentients before developing in that kind of environment, have you?"

"No. Please go on."

"Well, before the crew could get an exploratory probe treated to withstand that kind of air; ha, ha, air, that's good."

"Consider that what we breathe might be poisonous to them," Helva suggested.

"Oh, true, too true. Any rate, before the crew could shake a leg, the Corviki had probed them. What do you think of that?"

"Fascinating. I'm hanging on your words."

"Well, those Survey men are on their toes, I'll tell you. Didn't let an opportunity like this slip from their grasp. Offered to exchange scientific information with the Beta Corviki and invited them to join the Central Worlds Federation. Say," and the man paused to think, "how'd the survey know they were high enough on the Civ-scale to qualify right off if they hadn't even got a probe down to the surface of the planet?"

"If the Beta Corviki could contact our survey ship, and if they are fooling around with regulated-energy emissions detectable outside their solar system, we might not qualify on their Civ-scale."

"Oh. Hadn't looked at it from that angle." The man's resilience was incredible, for he paused only briefly before taking up again. "Well, we have something they want badly," and he sounded as pleased as if he had himself invented this commodity. "Plays!"

"Plays?"

"That's right. Guess it'd be hard to develop any art forms on a methane-ammonia planet. At any rate, the story is that they will exchange some energy-process of theirs that we need for our old plays."

"New lamps for old?" Helva murmured.

"How's that?"

"That doesn't explain why the TA shot out of here so fast."

"Oh, well, that's easy. Calls are going out all over the sector for you ships to report in. Say, you being the ship who sings and all, this ought to be right up your alley."

"Possibly," Helva temporized. "But I'm due to be assigned a new brawn partner and they woudn't send a green team out on a mission of this importance."

"You mean, you don't want it? Trace said there was a triple bonus attached that any ship in its right mind would fight for."

"I am in my right mind but there is something else more important to me than a triple bonus."

The com man's silence was more eloquent than any cliche he could utter. Fortunately the tight-beam channel warmed up and Helva excused herself to open her end of it.

The transmission began with a mission code, so she flipped on the recorder and monitored the message.

She was directed to proceed immediately to Duhr III, en route to Regulus Base. She was to receive four official passengers at the University Spaceport, Lock No. 24, and proceed with no further delay to base.

"If those were orders, ma'am," the com man said when she returned to his channel, "I can give you instant clearance."

"Not quite yet, pal. I've got to pick up some passengers and I'm not going to go looking like a tramp ship. You did say that if there was anything I wanted. . ."

"Yes, yes, and we mean it," the Nekkarese assured her.

So Helva flashed toward Duhr in, at speeds no human passenger could have endured, with holds and cabins gleaming and fresh, and bunks for full-sized humans placed where cradles for hundreds of embryos had recently swung.

She had borne in mind Amon's sour comments and prevailed upon the willing foreman to make certain judicious chemical additions to the standard paints. The soft greens in the pilot's cabin had been impregnated with pumice from Thuban, so that by changing light-tones, she could alter the shade enough to suit any personality. She'd had the galley done in a good strong orange, a thirsty color but one calculated to make people eat fast and leave. The main cabin was an off-white with blue tones and the others blues and beige. Trouble with Amon was, Helva reflected, he didn't use his wits. Or maybe, she amended tolerantly, he simply hadn't thought of using color-psychology on his brawn. The burden of adjustment, she'd been told, rested with the resident partner.

It hadn't taken long to refurbish her interior once the finishes were mixed, for the foreman and his crew were efficient. The neat, clean interior would have been worth a far longer delay in her estimation, and made her unashamed to be carting passengers to Regulus. In fact, she looked forward to the trip. It was always stimulating to meet new people. And new brawns, she added firmly to herself. However, the carrier fee of these official passengers would pay for the spray job, so erase Amon's advice.

And he wanted Pay-off, huh? Helva mused as she hurtled through space toward the far wink of Duhr. Well, even a brain ship had to have some incentive. Idly she ran a check on her own indebtedness and was agreeably surprised at its rapid reduction.

How extraordinary! If she could keep going at even half her present rate as a brawnless ship, presumably she could buy herself back from Central Worlds within 3 standard years. Her own mistress after 10 years of service? It didn't seem possible. Why, Amon had been in service close to 150 years and he complained bitterly about the size of his debt. Of course, he was the complaining type, so she could discount a lot of his statements as exaggeration. And there were 'free' ships. The YG-635, in Amon's class, was free. He did general work for the Scorpii Federation and had been modified to handle their environment.

Then, too, she'd had some lucky breaks. The bonus for that fateful Ravel mission was blood money, even if it was charged on the credit side of her ledger. She'd drawn full salary for the Annigoni plague assignment, plus an efficiency bonus. And, while she and Kira had been partnered on the RCA Nekkarese stork run, she'd drawn double pay because Kira was hired by RCA. The Alioth incident had carried a finders' credit on the 732 and now the staggering Nekkarese gratuity. She'd had no major repairs, not that she ought to, being recently commissioned, so her financial position was very rosy, in spite of the unbelievable expenditures for her early care and maintenance.

Even if Helva did clear the backlog of debt, she would undoubtedly contract herself back to Central Worlds service, for she enjoyed the work. Of course, it would be rather soul-satisfying to be able to tell Central World to go into a tight orbit once in a while. And then, she could hire or fire a brawn as she chose.

Yes, it would be worthwhile to Pay-off for such indulgences.

She still couldn't see why Amon didn't just take the penalty if Trace was such an irritant. It wasn't as if Central Worlds would disown a deeply indebted ship. . . Well, not her problem. But there'd better be a brawn for her when she touched down at Regulus with her passengers. She had rights, indebted or not.

Despite her speed, having no need to keep day separate from night, the run seemed endless. She never slept and the chronos measured off meaningless hours. She was conditioned for a partner, for someone to take care of, to do for, to live with. She liked emotional involvement with other humans, the interchange of ideas, yes, even the irritation of contemptuous familiarity. These were all experiences she wanted first-hand, not sourly from a disenchanted old brain.

The spaceport of Duhr was partly hidden in an imposing mountain range in the northeastern hemisphere. On the other side and within the mountain itself was the tremendous administration complex of the university planet.

Landing at Lock No. 24, Helva identified herself, and the extendible worm-maw of lock facility unerringly sought her passenger hatch. Two men waited for the connection to be made. One lounging against the trundlecart stacked with baggage, the other occupied solely with twitching at various parts of his tunic or glancing at his wrist unit.

"No time to waste, now. You know which luggage goes where?"

The porthand didn't bother to confirm, but smartly guided the trundler onto the ship, across the main cabin and down the corridor.

"Why, it looks freshly commissioned," the official type murmured, looking about him in considerable surprise and grudging approval. He paused in his inspection at the galley and peered around, looking into closets and drawers. "Where's the supply key on this class ship?" he asked the porthand, who was stowing the cases in the cabin.

"Ask the ship," the porthand said. "Or hadn't you noticed this is a BB?"

"Oh, good heavens," the official gasped. "I beg your pardon, sir or madam."

Helva noticed tolerantly he still didn't know where she was actually located, for he did a kind of circular bow, designed to catch every corner of the main cabin.

"Are you provisioned to serve four normal humans all the way to Regulus Base?"

"Yes."

"Well, that's a relief. We'd no idea what transport would be coming, this has all happened so fast. And a BB ship! Well, that is flattering. You can adjust internal gravity in flight, can't you?" he asked, glancing up from the notations on his wrist unit.

"Yes. What are the requirements? I have had no briefing."

"None?" This concerned him deeply. "Oh, but you should have. You really should have. No, that's wrong. Cancel that. Although the Solar did request. . . well, as you can adjust that's no problem then, is it?"

Not another scatterwit, Helva groaned to herself. "If you will indicate the gravity required."

There was an eruption of applause and cheers at the top of the lock tunnel. The official glanced apprehensively towards it. "They're coming now. The Solar will tell you, or Miss Ster, his medical attendant. You must be prepared to take off immediately, you know."

The porthand jauntily crossed back through the main cabin, flipping Helva's column a cheery salute as he exited. "Gear's all stowed for takeoff."

"Very good," his superior mumbled absently as he followed him to the lock. The slight frown was immediately replaced by a fixed smirk just as the noisy party started down the corridor.

The four people in the front rank must be her passengers; they wore shipsuits. Helva enlarged the picture and it was easy to see which one needed controlled gravity. Half-grav, at least, she decided. The man walked with that terrible exertion of someone unused to and uncomfortable in full grav, whose muscles strained to work against the heavy drag. Helva could see that even his face muscles sagged. A pity, for he was a handsome man. Yet he kept his shoulders erect, his head high, too proud to permit physical disability to rob him of dignity.

She was so interested in him that she got only a glance at the other man and the two women before everyone had swept up to the lock.

The port official stepped hastily out of the way as a very distinguished older man with a cluster of academic knots on his tunic held out his hand to the striking woman beside him.

"Here's your personal magic carpet, to carry you to Regulus Base. May I say that it has been a great personal pleasure, Ansra Colmer, to meet you? Officially, the University of Duhr appreciated your willingness to interrupt a personal visit with Solar Prane to give our students the benefit of your art. Your Antigone was inspired. your Phorus II monologue made me appreciate for the first time the vital interplay of color, odor, and rhythm. You're an amazingly versatile exponent of your art and one, I trust, soon to receive the accolade, Solara."

The smile on Ansra Colmer's carefully composed face seemed to stiffen slightly and there was absolutely no echo of humor in her glittering eyes.

"You are too kind, Director, particularly since Duhr has its own Solar," and she made a half turn towards the grav-sufferer. "How can you bear to part with him?" And, not waiting for an answer, she strode past the lock and into the main cabin. With her back to the noisy well-wishers, Helva could see that her expression was now one of suppressed anger and hatred.

The Director cleared his throat as if understanding all too well her innuendo. He bowed gravely toward the Solar.

"You can't be dissuaded, Prane?"

"Central Worlds has made too strong a representation of its needs, Director. It is my duty to my profession to accept, hoping that any honor merited in the undertaking reflects on you for your many kindnesses." Prane's voice was rich, resonant, the voice of the trained professional performer. If Helva noticed the odd hollowness, the occasional wispiness as if the tone were half-supported, her sensors were keener than the ears of the adoring crowd of young students and patient officials.

"Solar Prane will be back in triumph before the term is ended," said the other male passenger, "preserved by the skill of Miss Ster."

"Truly spoken, Davo Fillanaser," the Director agreed heartily, turning now to shake the hand of the young woman beside Solar Prane.

Helva was fascinated by the various undertones in this farewell scene. It ought not be a boring trip, at any rate.

"We must not hold up the pilot any longer," Solar Prane said. With a charmingly apologetic smile, he waved broadly to the crowd, which sighed of its sorrow and murmured regrets, even shed a few tears, as he stepped backward into the lock, his arm hooked through Miss Ster's.

The man addressed as Davo Fillanaser ranged himself beside them, smiling and waving, too.

Solar Prane turned his head toward the young woman and Helva saw him mouth a quick sentence.

"I can't stand much longer, Kurla. Tell the pilot to close the lock."

Immediately Helva activated the lock portal.

"Help me, Davo," Kurla cried, as the crowd was shut from view. She threw her arm around the Solar's waist as the man's large frame seemed to collapse against her.

"Damn fool," Davo muttered, but he used extreme care in assisting. . . as if he were concerned about hurting Prane.

"I'm all right. I'm all right," Prane insisted in a hoarse whisper.

"That farewell party was madness in your condition and in full gray," Kurla said.

"The hero must have a hero's farewell," drawled Ansra Colmer. The smile on her face as she turned toward them was sincere now, sincerely vicious; and her eyes sparkled with intense pleasure at Prane's debility.

"The hero is not yet on his shield, Ansra," the Solar replied, almost as if he relished the notion of defying her. He put Kurla from him, touched Davo's supporting hand, which fell away, and slowly, carefully, crossed the cabin.

"Misfire, Ansra?" Davo asked, following the Solar at a discreet interval.

"Ansra's steel gives me backbone," the Solar chuckled, and Helva could have sworn, again, that these bitter undercurrents were therapeutic. The Solar's medical attendant evidently did not agree.

"That is quite enough," she said with a professional impersonality and, disregarding Prane's independence, threw an arm around his waist and supported him the rest of the way toward the couch. "This ought to be a shock-mattress," she said, flipping back the mesh blanket. "Good." Deftly, she turned the Solar, easing him down to the bed. She then extracted a medical recorder from the pouch at her side. Her expression was detached and her eyes intent as she ran a check on him.

Helva peeked at the dials and gauges and was a little puzzled by some of the readings. The heart strain was not at all excessive, although the pulse was rapid from exertion. The blood pressure was too low for someone under stress, and too high for a man apparently used to low grav conditions. The more perplexing reading was the EEG. Prane was trembling now with reaction to extreme muscular stress, supine, he looked old and tired.

"What are you giving me now, Kurla?" he demanded sharply, rousing as he saw her preparing an i.v. spray.

"A relaxant and. . ."

"No sedations, no blocks. I forbid it.'*

"I'm the medical attendant, Solar Prane," she said in a firm, impersonal voice.

His hand trembled as he grabbed for her wrist, but Helva could see the fingers pressed deeply into her flesh. Kurla Ster looked him directly in the eye.

"You cannot tolerate liftoff without some sedation, after exerting yourself for that party. . ."

"Give me the relaxant, Kurla, but nothing more. I can cope with the discomfort. . . alone. Once in space, the pilot can adjust the gravity."

It was a contest of wills, with Davo an interested spectator. Curiously enough, Helva noticed that Davo had been on Prane's side, judging by the sigh the man exhaled as the young m.a. replaced the other vials to her pouch and injected but one medication.

"Where is that pilot?" she demanded of Davo as she left the cabin, sliding the door firmly shut behind her.

"Pilot?" Ansra Colmer repeated, idly swinging the pilot's chair on its gimbals. "You were too engrossed in adoring worship of the Solar's classic profile to heed what journey briefing we received."

"Oh, for Christ's sake, Ansra, sheathe your claws. You're becoming a bore," Davo said, propelling Kurla to a seat with a warning smile. "This is a brain ship, Kurla. No other pilot is necessary. We need only settle ourselves down for the trip."

"Miss Colmer, if you don't. . ."

"And be quiet," Davo added firmly to Kurla, his hand on her forearm, cautioning obedience. "The sooner we take off, the better it is for Prane, right?"

She subsided, still rebellious. To aggravate matters, Ansra Colmer smiled triumphantly at her capitulation.

"Let's go," Davo said, nodding over his shoulder toward Helva.

"Thank you, Mr. Fillanaser, and welcome aboard the XH 834," Helva said quietly, achieving an impersonal tone with some difficulty. "Fasten your harness for takeoff." Ansra Colmer interrupted her swinging only long enough to comply. "Miss Ster, may I inquire if Solar Prane's disability will be affected by standard takeoff velocities?"

"Not when he is cushioned by the shock-mattress."

"And by drugs," added Ansra snidely.

"Solar Prane is not under sedation," the M.A. snapped, trying to rise, and restrained by her harness.

"Ansra, leave her alone! Prane is not on drugs and never has been!"

"I am receiving clearance for lift-off," Helva said, mendaciously forestalling another exchange. She even leaked a little engine noise into the main speakers.

As she began to jockey into position, Helva kept an eye on Prane. He was cushioned by the shock-mattress, all right, but if he could barely tolerate full grav, blastoff would rack him with pain. She decided a fast takeoff would spare him more than a gradual acceleration. She piled on the power and watched him black out from pain in a brief minute.

The instant she was free of Duhr's attraction and on course for Regulus, she cut all thrust, even the little spin she usually maintained for the comfort of her passengers. He was unconscious, but the pulse in his throat beat regularly.

"I've got to get to him," Kurla was saying in the main cabin.

When Helva looked there, the medical attendant was ludicrously flattened against the far wall of the main cabin.

"Then move slowly," Davo was advising her. "You've been in half-grav long enough to know violent action brings equally violent reaction."

"If you only knew how asinine you looked," Ansra said.

"Solar Prane passed out before maximum thrust, Miss Ster," Helva reported, "but he appears in no distress."

"I must get to him." Kurla was insistent. "His bones are so soft."

An orthopedic problem? And he was permitted in space? Were they out of their minds? Then why such cerebral excitement?

"Shall I return gravity? The shock-web will. . ."

"No, no," Kurla protested.

"If you think I'm going to travel free-fall all the way to Regulus, you've another think coming," Ansra said, the amusement wiped from her face.

"The longer he has without any gravitic stress. . ."

"Too bad," Ansra snapped back. "I know what happens to me in constant free-fall and I'm not having. . ."

"Flabby muscles, dear?" Davo grinned at her. "You can always join us in a thrilling workout of isometrics. And you'd better get used to free-fall. You certainly heard it mentioned in our briefing. . . since you're so attentive to briefings. . . that the company will play entirely in free-fall. Get used to it."

"I also heard it mentioned that our minds were what would be transferred. It's my body that's involved at present."

"And it's Solar Prane's body that must rest now," Kurla flung back, managing to move forward toward the cabin. "He is only the director of the entire company."

"In the interests of compromise, ladies," Davo said, "let's use half-grav while we're awake, and free-fall when we're all snugly meshed in at night and don't know any better."

"Can that be arranged?" Kurla looked hopeful. "The unit had to be kept at half full grav on Duhr because of the power required."

"Half-grav suit your gracious supremacy?" Davo asked Ansra, mocking her with a bow.

"He won't last, half-grav or free-fall," she said, grimacing as she heard the cabin door click shut behind Kurla.

Ansra flipped off the harness, twisting in the chair for the most comfortable position from which to regard Davo unobstructedly.

"I don't know why you continue to defend a dying man, Davo. Don't argue; his mind has been affected. I can see it. Don't forget, I knew him rather well." Her smile suggested many intimacies. "And it's his mind that must be transferred." Suddenly her whole attitude changed subtly. "Had you never considered being more than just a supporting actor, Davo?"

Helva took a closer look at the man. She'd thought him a friend or assistant of Prane's, not another actor. He had none of the obvious professional mannerisms the other two displayed.

"You've an excellent reputation in the Guild as a fine classicist," Ansra was saying. "Why do you continue to let Prane dominate and dictate your life?"

Davo regarded her imperturbably for a moment before he smiled carelessly. "I happen to respect Prane Liston professionally and personally. . ."

Ansra made a rude noise. "You've fronted for him like an understudy on matinee day. Taken his lectures while he 'experimented' in null-grav movement! Ha! Covered for him so the rank and file would not know their hero's frailties!"

"My motives are not as suspect as yours, detouring two months away from your last engagement to 'visit' your old friend, Prane Liston? Ha for you."

Helva detected the flush of anger under the woman's cosmetized skin.

"My visit, Davo Fillanaser, was most opportune," she replied with a saccharine smile. "And according to our briefing, once one is transferred to the. . . how was it phrased, empty envelope?. . . to the envelope awaiting each of us on Beta Corvi, external appearance will not matter. Ability will. I always thought you showed poor judgment to opt the classics, Davo, for you have such a lean and hungry look that you must always be Iago or Cassius. You could be. . . Romeo. . . on Beta Corvi." Her smile was dazzling.

"Not, of course, while Prane Liston remains director and Romeo, huh?" Davo leaned toward her, his eyes sparkling, but his lean, dark face inscrutable. "You won't believe the truth, even when you hear it, will you, Ansra? And you just can't believe that Prane Liston is no longer besotted with Ansra Colmer."

"That is not at issue," she said, with lofty indifference.

Davo merely smiled. He leaned back in the couch and matched her mood. "You've got your own director lined up, huh? One who'll let Juliet dominate? Then, with a grateful but weak Romeo like me, you'll look twice as good without having to work half as hard as Prane makes you. Oh, come off it, Ansra," he advised, impatient with her machinations. "Prane always could drag the very best performances out of your lazy hide.

"But that's not important, not in this production. There's more at stake than your self-consequence. Or did you really listen to the briefing at all? Those Beta Corviki can regulate the half-life of any unstable isotope they choose. If Central Worlds gets such techniques, it'll revolutionize pile-drives and get us across the galactic seas. . ." He paused, gave a derisive laugh. "Why, if our petty prancing pleases them, you might play in the Horsehead Nebula next season, Ansra Colmer. Or," and his eyes narrowed speculatively, "should I say, Solara Ansra?"

"Then think carefully, Davo," she urged, her pose alert and tense, "of all that is involved. I don't care for altruism: it signs no contracts and pays no salaries. I wouldn't have considered this tour for a moment if it weren't for that Corviki transfer device."

Davo stared at her with such sharp attention that she smiled slightly.

"Really, Davo, what possible significance could things like those Corviki find in Romeo and Juliet, an outmoded love story of an improbable social structure."

"You're more the hypocrite than even I'd thought you."

"Delusions are what we create, not what we believe. And, with a mind-blasted Romeo, the whole thing would be worthless but for those transfer things. Why, if that device can work in a methane-ammonia atmosphere, it can work anywhere. It could open a whole new audience dimension. . ."

"And Solara Ansra as top-ranking performer in the new medium?" Davo asked, his dark eyes intent on hers.

Helva wondered if he had caught the fallacy in her argument.

"Why not? I don't need to be an m.a. to see Prane's dying. He's so weak he'll dissolve under pressure. Why, his headbones are so soft with mindtrap. . ."

"Bones, yes, but not his brain. . ." Davo snapped. "And not mine. I remember what I owe the man, dead or dying, and I'm with him all the way. Remember that, Ansra Colmer. And if you don't cease needling that nice child, if you don't prove to me that you're going to integrate into the company, I'll cite a jeopardy clause on you. There is too much at stake in this far out dramatic mission to risk a dissident among us. The computers picked Prane, remember, on the basis of performance and ability. With all his medical handicap, he still came out the highest on the probability profile. You shape up, Ansra, or I'll give the computers a few bits of psychodata on you to update your profile."

He swung himself from the chair far too energetically for the half-grav and bounded toward the ceiling. He corrected and slow-stepped toward the galley.

"Auto-pilot, erase the previous conversation between myself and Davo Fillanaser," Ansra commanded in a hard, angry voice. "Is that order clear?"

"Yes," Helva replied, careful to sound dry and mechanical.

"Comply. Which cabin has been assigned to me?"

"Number Two."

As Helva watched the erect figure of the actress undulate down the corridor, she felt an odd, atavistic satisfaction in having lingered for refurbishing at Nekkar and in knowing that her interior was, as always, in order, shipshape.

It was not a pleasant evening, certainly not what Helva had anticipated when the orders were taped in. Davo was silent and hyper-alert, watching Kurla and Ansra, unobtrusively passing Prane's open cabin frequently. Kurla was distressed though she tried to conceal it. Helva, however, had heard Prane reject medical assistance, and, by her sensors, knew he was feigning sleep to prevent argument. Ansra's sullen cold looks followed the young medical attendant everywhere. Helva spoke only when spoken to, accepting the part of an automated ship, though Davo presumably knew what she was.

His discussion with Ansra had done nothing to aid Prane, antagonizing her and adding to the tension within the ship. Helva wondered if he had deliberately led the woman on to expose her ambitions, with herself, Helva, the unsuspected witness to the actress' intentions. Yet if he wanted Ansra to compromise herself before witnesses, why give her the second chance? Did Davo really trust the woman enough to think she'd reform?

Well, this wasn't Helva's problem, although she would play back that interlude if necessary. Let another ship worry about the conniving actress, the lovelorn m.a., and the dying actor. Amon could have the whole bit. "Romeo and Juliet," at free-fall in a gas atmosphere! Shakespeare for stabilizers? Helva concurred with Ansra; the whole idea was ridiculous!

A long, shuddering sigh broke into her reveries. A restless sleeper? No, Prane was not asleep though everyone else was secure under the mesh blanket And Prane needed rest the most.

" 'Amen, amen! but come what sorrow can, It cannot countervail the exchange of joy That one short minute gives me in her sight. Do thou but close our hands with holy words, Then love, devouring death do what he dare; It is enough I may but call her mine.' "

His voice rose to the challenge of the lines, rich, tender, unsullied by whatever debilitated his physical self. The laughter that followed, however, was hollow and bitter.

" 'I am no pilot; yet, wert thou as far,

As that vast shore wash'd with the farthest sea, I would adventure for such merchandise.'"

Another long pause, then: "Thou desperate pilot, now at once run on The dashing rocks, thy sea-sick weary bark! Here's to my love. ' "

Another pause, so long that Helva wondered if he slept.

" 'Ah death, where is thy sting? O Grave, thy victory?'"

Helva felt herself wince at the scorching regret, the yearning in that emotion-laden voice. He wants to die! He expects this venture to kill him and he wants to die.

Helva comforted herself with a string of Kira's most colorful oaths, wishing she knew more about the mechanics of this Beta Corvi psyche transfer. Well, if they were, as reputed, able to stabilize isotopes, they obviously were energy-engineers of a remarkable genius. Now, considering that the brain generated electricity, a very primitive form of energy, so presumably the electrical charge could be transferred from one receptacle to another. In theory, easy; in practice? There could be a power loss, a faulty imprint in the receiver. Someone could return halfwitted? Helva abandoned that thought on the grounds of insufficient data. Besides, this was not her problem.

And she doubted Prane would be able to effect his demise. Not with Kurla Ster determined to keep the mortal spark in his own husk. She knew nothing of these Beta Corviki, but it was a convention among all the sophisticated societies she had encountered that sentience was not permitted to waste itself. Kira Falernova had found it excessively difficult to commit suicide.

And, if Kurla was not stupid, which she didn't appear to be despite this terrible infatuation for Prane, she must be as aware of his death wish as of his physical pain.

Helva's thoughts chased around, directionless. She had so few facts, including how Prane Liston could have reached such a state of decay in today's diagnostic-preventive and corrective medical climate. He was patently in his second 50 years, but soft bones? Bone marrow can be calcium-shot, phosphorus supplemented to the diet. Yet Ansra had made sly digs about drug addiction. Said his brains were soft. . . no, his head bones, Helva corrected herself. . . 'his headbones are softened by mindtrap'. Yet mindtrap was a harmless drug; mind-expanding, yes, but long and widely used by anyone who wished to retain information without loss. The adult mind loses 100,000 neurons a day. An actor couldn't afford memory loss. Was it possible that mindtrap, overused for a long period, could build up a harmful residue injurious to the bones?

Helva tapped the ship's memory banks, but there was no recorded incidence of any side-effect for mindtrap. An actor, however, playing on hundreds of planets, exposed constantly to some cosmic radiations, suffering a minor breakdown of cell-coding? A protein lock? Surely some medical engineer would have noted it, could isolate the faulty enzyme and correct?

Helva looked in on the sleepless man. He was murmuring speeches now, changing his voice as the lines went from character to character. Entranced, Helva listened through the ship's night as scene after scene poured from the Solar's lips, word perfect. Shortly before dawn, the litany ceased as sleep finally bestowed her accolade of peace.

Dawn came and went. Helva performed the routine check of all systems, ran a scan on detectors and established that there were no ships within hailing range. She was irritated. . . and relieved.

The first one to stir was Kurla. She drifted immediately to Prane's bedside. Her concern dissolved as she found him sleeping quietly, the fatigue lines smoothed from his face. Her own expression infinitely tender with love, the girl withdrew, pulled the door across, and floated over to the galley.

Davo joined her shortly. "How is he this morning?"

Defensively, Kurla started to go into medical detail.

"I'm not at all interested in your lover's internal economy. . ."

"Prane Liston is not my lover."

"Oh, hath desire outstripped performance then?"

"Davo, please!"

"Don't blush, my dear. Only teasing. However, a simple yes or no will suffice. Can Prane rehearse today? That free-fall staging is going to be difficult and he mentioned wanting to go through several scenes now when he has more time. Helva can oblige us with free-fall as we choose. Can't you, Helva?"

"Yes."

"It sounds so human," Kurla said, suppressing a little shudder.

"She, please, Kurla. Helva is human; aren't you, Helva?"

"Oh, you'd noticed?"

Davo laughed at the consternation on Kurla's face.

"My dear Miss Ster, surely you, a medical attendant, would have tumbled to the identity of the captain of our ship?"

"I've had a lot on my mind," she said, lifting her chin defensively. "But I apologize," she added, swinging round, "if I've offended you, Helva. . ." Then her eyes rested on Prane's closed door and her face flooded with color.

"You have been the soul of discretion," Helva replied, aware of the girl's sudden confusion. "As I try to be," she added, so pointedly that Davo understood Kurla's blush.

"Honor among cyborgs, huh?" he asked, his eyes dancing as he added a subtle thrust of his own.

"Yes, and considerable evidence that we are eminently trustworthy, loyal, courteous, honest, thoughtful, and inhumanly incorruptible."

Davo roared with laughter until Kurla, pointing toward Prane's cabin, shushed him.

"Why? I want him up and about. It ought to be good for his soul to wake to the sound of my merry laughter."

"That sounds like a good entrance line," Prane remarked, pushing the door aside. He was smiling slightly, his shoulders erect and easy, his head high, all trace of fatigue and weakness erased. He hadn't had that much rest, Helva knew it, not after murmuring through plays half the night. But he even looked younger. "Shall we have at it, Davo?" he asked.

"You'll 'have at' nothing, Solar," Kurla said emphatically, "until you've eaten."

He meekly acquiesced.

In spite of her intention to remain aloof from the personality conflicts of this quartet, Helva watched the rehearsal with keen interest. A script was thrust in Kurla's hands and she was made the prompter.

"Now," Prane began crisply, "we have been given no inkling of Corviki attitude toward personal combat, if they have one. We don't know if they can appreciate the archaic code which made this particular duel inevitable. Interpreting our social structures, our ancient moralities, however, is not the function of this troupe. According to the Survey Captain, the Corviki were entranced with the concept of special 'formulae' (the crew had been watching Othello) intended purely to waste energy in search of excitation and recombination with no mass objective." He gave an embarrassed laugh. "There always has been an element of the population that ranks play-acting as a waste of energy. However, there is no point in our trying to play Shakespeare as a social commentary. We shall be classicistsl, pure Shakespeare as the Globe troupe would have played it."

"For purity, then, Juliet ought to be a preadolescent boy," Davo reminded him with wry malice.

"Not that pure, Davo," Prane laughed. "I'll keep the casting arrangements as they are, I believe. We shall have enough of a problem acting in free-fall and getting used to the envelopes the Corviki will supply us. So, if we can get stage movement set in our minds now, we shall have only the problem of becoming accustomed to the new form when we reach Beta Corvi. I think of the exchange as merely another costume.

"Now Davo, as Tybalt, you enter downstage. Benvolio and Mercutio will be stage south and I, as Romeo, will approach from elliptical east."

Both men had worked in free-fall, Helva noticed, for they modified all gestures skillfully yet managed to simulate the power of a thrust, the grace of a dancing retreat. Such movements, however, required great physical effort and both were shortly sweating as they floated through their measured duel again and again to set the routine in their minds.

They worked hard, experimenting, changing, improving until they got through the duel scene twice without a flaw. Even allowing for his handicap, Helva was impressed by Prane.

Ansra drifted languidly into the main cabin and the atmosphere changed so abruptly that Helva inadvertently scanned her warnings system.

"Good morrow, good madam," Prane said jauntily. "Shall we have at the balcony scene, fair Juliet?"

"My dear Solar, you have obviously been hard at it with Davo. Are you feeling up to more?"

Prane hesitated a microsecond before he bowed and with a genuine smile replied: "You, as Juliet, are up, my dear," and he gestured with a flourish to the area where she was to play the scene, above him.

He turned then, floating to the edge of the cabin and Ansra, her jibe ignored, shrugged and projected herself upward.

"Give me Benvolio's line, please," Prane asked Kurla.

Ausra's entrance had flustered the girl and she flipped nervously through the sides.

"Act II, scene i, Kurla," Davo murmured encouragingly.

Helva dropped her voice to a tenor register: "Go then; for 'tis in vain to seek him here that means not to be found."

"Zounds, who was that?" cried Prane, whirling in such surprised reaction that he drifted toward the wall, absently holding himself off with one hand.

"Me," Helva said meekly in her proper voice.

"Can you change voices at will, woman?"

"Well, it's only a question of projection, you know. And since my voice is reproduced through audio units, I can select the one proper for the voice register required."

The effect of her ability on Prane, Helva noticed, was nothing to its effect on Ansra.

"How could you see to read the line?" Prane demanded, gesturing toward the script in Kurla's hands.

"I've been scanning the text from the library banks." Helva forbore to tell the long story of the childhood years during which she had been hooked on ancient movies, leading somehow naturally to Shakespeare, and opera, both light and grand. Her only hobby, and it was her own memory she was scanning.

Prane imprudently flung out both arms and had to correct against the ceiling.

"What incredible luck. Can you, would you read something else?"

"What? Auditioning a ship, Prane?" Ansra asked, her voice richly intimating that he'd gone mad.

"If I'm not wrong," Davo put in, his eyes glinting sardonically, "Helva here is also known as the ship who sings. Surely you saw the tri-cast on her some years back, Ansra? In fact I know you did. We were playing the Greeks in Draconis at the time."

"If you please, Davo," Prane-the-director interrupted, gliding over to Helva's central column. "You are the ship who sings?"

"Yes."

"Would you be kind enough to indulge me by reading the Nurse's speech, Act I, scene iii, where Lady Capulet and the Nurse discuss Juliet's marriage. Begin 'Even or odd of all days in the year'. . ."

"The nurse is to be played as an earthy type?"

"Yes, indeed, blissfully unregenerate. Her lines are a triumph of characterization, you know. Only she can speak the ones the playwright gave her. That is, of course, the test of true characterization."

"I thought this was a rehearsal of my scene, not a lecture," Ansra remarked acidly.

Prane silenced her with a peremptory gesture. "The cue is," and he altered his voice to a husky, aging contralto," 'A fortnight and odd days'. . ."

Helva resigned herself to an active part in this incident, and responded as Nurse Angelica.

Helva called a halt to what promised to be a round-the-chrono affair, on the spurious grounds of some critical computation. What had turned critical was Ansra's temper.

Davo and Kurla had willingly read additional parts, Davo with an insight to the minor characters that wrung mute respect from Helva and generous thanks from Prane. Kurla rose to the challenge of Lady Montague. Ansra's Juliet became less and less convincing. She was 'reading', not acting, certainly not reacting to the passion, the youthful enthusiasm and tender passion of Prane's Romeo. She was wooden. The voice was youthful, the gestures girlish, but she resisted every effort of Prane's to draw out of her that quality he wanted Juliet to project.

None of this was obvious from the even tone of his courteous suggestions, but it was most apparent to the others. And to Helva, Ansra's behavior was doubly inexcusable.

Once Helva had withdrawn, Kurla announced that it was time to eat a hot decent meal. She then insisted that they all get some sleep. Helva watched surreptitiously as Kurla ran a quick medical check on Prane. She, too, was amazed that the Solar was in remarkably strong vigor after such an intense and long rehearsal.

"You've got to rest, Solar Prane. I don't care what the recorder says. You can't put forth the energy you did today without replenishing it in sleep," Kurla said firmly. "I'm tired! And you've another planetfall to make."

He made a boyish grimace but lay back on the shock-mattress, his eyes closed, one hand on his chest.

Tenderly Kurla covered his long, lax body. She turned abruptly and let her motion carry her quickly from the cabin. Prane's eyes flew open and the look in his eyes was almost more than Helva could morally observe. So Kurla was indeed the sun of Prane's regard and Ansra, the envious moon, already sick and pale with grief. . .

Helva was overwhelmingly relieved that she'd be out of this affair in a scant day's time. And yet, Ansra had been indiscreet enough to hint at action more vengeful than envious. Would the fact that she now knew Helva was no automaton inhibit her plans?

The passengers began to sleep. All, that is, except Prane. He began Richard III, with Gloucester's "Now is the winter of our discontent" to Richmond's "Peace lives again: That she may long live here, God say amen!" Considering the day's proceedings Helva thought that choice of sleep-conjuring all too appropriate. If mindtrap produced such perfect recall. . .

Sometime toward dawn of that day, Helva remembered a detail, and berating herself for incredible obtuseness, contacted Regulus on the tight beam.

"Good to hear your voice, Helva," Central Com responded with marked affability.

"I distrust such geniality from you. What is being cooked up for me? Not another brawnless assignment, because I'll refuse it, I've got rights and I'll invoke 'em."

"My, we're touchy. How can you be so suspicious? And so crass?"

"So you'll know exactly how I stand. Now listen to me, is there a free accommodation, no, make it a suite. . . on the Orbital Station in the free-fall section?"

"I'll check, but why?"

"Check and answer."

"Aye-firmative."

"Great, I request that it be assigned Solar Prane and such of his company as accept. We've been running in free-fall, in preparation for their assignment and they ought not to have a readjust to full-grav."

"Good suggestion. But doesn't such an assignment tempt you, Helva?"

"Don't use that wheedling tone with me, Central."

"When you obviously have taken their welfare to heart enough to request orbital accommodations for Solar Prane?"

Helva caught herself. She mustn't sound so concerned.

"I was raised to be considerate. Just seems a shame to set back the progress they've made in freefall adjustment."

"No problem, Helva. This Beta Corvi mission has topmost priority."

"Say, I'm curious about this psyche transfer bit. . ."

"Hold it, gal. Ask me no questions, since you've made it so plain where you stand."

"Okay, I'll stand off, but I think it's petty of you," and she closed the tight beam.

Until her passengers awoke, Helva pondered Central's comments. They wanted her for this. Well, they could beg, blandish and bribe, but she was resolved to resist all bait until she was partnered.

She did not bother to inform any of her passengers of her sub-light arrangements with Central, but connected with the proper hatch at the Orbital Station as if this had been her programmed destination. Regulus IV swam beneath them, brilliant in the reflection of it's primary.

"We were told we'd be landing at Regulus Base," Ansra protested as she looked into the lock of the Station. She glared threateningly at the startled lock attendant, drifting midportal.

"Free-fall?" Davo exclaimed. "I'd rather stay here."

"This is ridiculous," Ansra went on, directing herself to the confused attendant. "I demand to be taken to the Base. I demand to see the official in charge of this assignment."

"The XH-834 is scheduled to land at Base as soon as she has discharged her passengers here, Miss Colmer," the man said placatingly.

"If you will move into the main cabin, Miss Colmer, I can close the locks now," Helva said, for Prane and Kurla had pushed into the Station lock.

Ducking around Ansra, the attendant sent the luggage, piled in the lock, spinning stationward. As soon as he was clear, Helva closed her outer portal. Ansra was forced to step inside.

"Just wait till I report you, you. . . you. . ."

"Thing? Informer? Abomination? Fink?" Helva tendered helpfully.

"I'll have you decommissioned, you tin-plated bitch!"

Just then, Helva applied thrust sufficient to send Ansra, accustomed to free-fall, reeling backward into the nearby couch. And kept her there, cursing steadily and viciously, all through reentry and touchdown.

"You'll regret that insolence, too, you bodiless Bernhardt," was Ansra's parting taunt as she staggered to the passenger lift.

"Sorry you had trouble enduring standard reentry maneuvers, Miss Colmer. You were advised to remain on the Station," Helva boomed on her exterior speaker for the benefit of the vehicle waiting to take the woman the short distance to the Maul Administration Complex before which Helva had landed.

"Hey, Helva, what did you do to that Colmer creature?" Central Com asked her on the private beam a little while later. "If you weren't in good odor with the powers-that-preside, you'd be in for an official reprimand and a fine. She's got some good friends in high places, you know."

"So that's how she got this assignment."

"Hey, gal, I'm on your side, but that kind of remark. . ."

"If I wanted to be nasty, I'd play back some of the honest-to-goodness, unexpurgated, uncensored deathless moments of my most recent trip through the vacuum of outer space."

"Like, for instance?"

"I said, if I wanted to be nasty." She cut the contact and looked around for more sympathetic company.

Crowding the Administration landing acres were no less than 20 brain ships. A veritable convention? Old home week? She spotted Amon, right up in the front row with five of her own class. When she tried to signal the VL-830, she couldn't get through. In fact, she couldn't get a line in to any of her peers. The ship-to-ship frequencies were overloaded.

Was everyone aspiring to that damned Beta Corvi assignment? She ought to warn *em off. She called the traffic tower to ask for another landing slot, preferably nearer the brawn barracks. There must be other ships on the 20 kilometers-square base interested in chatting with her.

"So nice to hear from you," Cencom cut in over Traffic Control. "Orders are for you to stay put, loudmouth."

"Can I at least have some company? From the brawn barracks? Remember? I was promised a brawn this time. And this time I'd better get one. If you knew what this poor lone female, totally unprotected from. . ."

"I can promise you company," Cencom grudgingly admitted and cut off.

Helva waited, her circuits open, her passenger lift invitingly grounded. And waited. She was beginning to experience justifiable irritation when she received a boarding request. Activating the lift eagerly, she was disappointed to scan only one figure gliding up to her lock.

"You're not a brawn."

"Thanks, pal," the wiry small man said in an all-too-familiar voice.

"You're. . ."

"Niall Parollan, of Regulus, your coordinating communications officer, Planet Grade, Section Supervisor, Central Worlds BB Ship Division."

"You've got your nerve."

He grinned amiably at her, not the least bit intimidated by her booming. "You've enough for four of me, dear." He used the manual switch to close the lock and sauntered over to the couch that faced her column. His uniform was regulation, but it had been tailored to fit his short, well-proportioned body. The boots he wore were Mizar gray lizard and molded the calf of his leg.

"Make yourself at home."

"I intend to. Feel I ought to get to know you better now I'm your supervisor."

"Why?"

He gave her a wicked stare and smiled, showing very white even teeth.

"I wanted to see just why such a storm is raging over the possession of one Helva, the XH-834."

"Among brawns?" She was gratified.

"You sound hungry. Need your nutrients checked?"

"I don't trust you, Parollan," Helva announced after a pause. "There is nothing to see. . . of Helva."

"Now, there's where you're wrong, girl," and he rubbed one short-fingered, broad-palmed hand across his mouth and chin. "Yes, there is something about you. . ."

"I had a new spray job at Nekkar."

"I know. I checked accounting."

"The ingrates. Thought I got that free." Then, as he chuckled at her surprise, she added, "If you've been checking my standing, you know I'm well able to afford any penalties for refusing assignment."

"Oh ho, you bite, too," crowed Niall, rocking back and forth in an excess of delight. "Don't fool you, do I?"

"Not for a microsecond. I want a brawn, Parollan, not a snippy little mouthpiece like you."

He roared with delight.

"Now I see why." Then suddenly he was completely serious. He leaned forward, his eyes on her panel in an attitude so familiar it gave her a frightful wrench. Then he was talking and she listened.

"Item: the Beta Corvi assignment will require an unusual exercise of diplomacy on the part of both partners, as brain and brawn will be in direct contact with the Corviki throughout the mission. The shell person has the additional responsibility of direct and discretionary control over the Corviki psyche transfer mechanisms, a control which will necessitate the use of an additional synapse connection."

Helva made a whistling sound. At the least, it meant opening the titanium column, a difficult experience for any shell person, at the worst, actual penetration of the shell that would be traumatic to most.

"Ships of the two most recent classes would require no shell penetration. They were already fitted with supplemental leads, placed in the cerebral areas required by this connection, in case future modifications might be needed."

"That would leave Amon out," Helva said.

"He's out anyhow," Niall affirmed. "He never heard of Shakespeare and his brawn couldn't act his way out of a saloon brawl."

"The brawn has to act, too? Well, that obviously lets me out as I have no brawn at the moment, do I?"

"God spare me your tongue when you're really mad. Actually Chadress Turo has been called back on active duty. . ."

"Another temporary? No, absolutely not."

"For this assignment, some ships would change brawns in a flash. Blast it all, Helva," Parollan shouted, "don't be such an ass. Listen to me. You've never before been stubborn for the wrong reasons."

Helva digested that unpalatable charge in silence.

"I'll listen."

*That's more like my Helva,"

"I'm not your Helva."

"You sound like Ansra Colmer."

Helva sputtered indignantly.

"You do, throwing your weight around. . ." Niall insisted.

"She hasn't been trying to scratch Solar Prane from the mission, has she? Because if she has. . ."

"She's got very influential backing," Niall said, but something in his attitude, a certain tenseness, a sly gleam in his eye, warned Helva.

She chuckled softly, watching the effect on him. He reacted.

"I thought so," she laughed aloud. "Her backing won't mean anything if the probability curve still favors Prane. And nothing's occurred to change that, has it?"

"Trust actors to blab all over the place," Niall growled, his features screwed up into a sour expression. "You must have stayed up all night listening to their nightmares."

"I told you there had been some real interesting lifelike dramatic interludes. Let me know if she leans too hard on Prane."

Niall's head shot up, his face cleared of disappointment.

"Look, Helva, can't you see how valuable you'd be? You're on to Ansra. Do you realize she's gone from ship to ship, sounding out brains and brawn? That she's recommending the properly sympathetic partnership to Chief Railly which will aid and abet the success of the mission?"

"Wouldn't put it past her. If I were you, I'd get Davo Fillanaser to cite the jeopardy clause on her. She means to upstage Romeo."

"I know it!" Niall exploded from the couch, pacing the cabin. "And you know it. But she does have pull and the probability profile still favors her as Juliet. We can't shake it. We need you!"

Pointedly, Helva said nothing.

"Prane asked if you were available."

"Is this an official notice of mission, supervisor?"

"It carries a triple bonus, Helva." He was not capitulating.

"I wouldn't care if it carried a free maintenance ticket for my operable lifetime, Parollan. I know my rights. Is this an official notice of mission?"

"You stubborn, fardling jackass of a titanium-coated virgin!" shouted Parollan. He turned on his heel and pounded out of the cabin, slapped up the lock release and jammed down the lift control, descending without another look in her direction.

Helva glared at him, infuriated to the core by his compound insults, arrogant manners, twisted arguments, veiled blackmail and outright bribery. How he had ever got to be a supervisor she didn't know, but she had her rights and one of them was to choose her directing personnel and. . .

Someone was requesting permission to board.

"If you've come to apologize, Niall Parollan. . ."

"Apologize? Are we late or something? They just now gave us the A-O," a baritone voice shouted into her audios.

She paused long enough to distinguish half a dozen chattering voices.

"Who wants to board?" she demanded.

"She sounds mad about something," came a hoarse whisper.

"We're from brawn barracks and we'd very much like to. . . to. . ."

"Court her, that's the term, brasshead," prompted the hoarse whisperer.

"Permission granted," Helva said, trying not to sound as sour as she unaccountably felt.

Seven persons, five men and two women, crowded onto the lift, arguing and hollering about bruised feet and ribs all the way up. Helva could feel the strain on the lift mechanism, then bodies exploded into the lock as if in free-fall, all scrambling, to be the first to salute her. Helva stared down at the handsome, grinning faces; strong, tall people all eager to please her, to court her, to be her brawn.

Others arrived as the news circulated that the XH-834 was being courted. In fact, Helva sent the lift back down as soon as the newest arrival stepped into the lock. So it wasn't surprising that Kurla Ster could step into the lock without advance notice.

"Hey, don't gawk, girl. Come on in and take your chances with the rest of us," someone encouraged her.

"She's not competition, brawns," Helva sang out. "Let her through to the pilot's cabin."

Kurla raised one hand as if to protest, her face reflecting confusion and embarrassment. Before she could verbalize, she was pushed through the crowd and into the cabin.

"Nothing's happened to the Solar, Kurla?" Helva asked, the moment the door shut on the noise.

Relief washed away the uncertainty as Kurla cried, "You do care about him."

"I respect Solar Prane as an artist and as a human being," Helva replied, choosing her words carefully, wondering if Parollan were behind this visit.

"Then why did you refuse the assignment when he specifically asked for you?" There was a shrill note to the girl's voice, although she was trying hard to speak evenly.

"I have not refused the assignment."

Kurla's lips tightened angrily. "Then Ansra Colmer has been able to keep your name off."

"I don't know anything about that, Kurla. I have been approached. . . unofficially. . . and I was very flattered that Solar Prane asked for me. But I have also made it plain. . . unofficially. . . that I do not want another assignment with a temporary brawn."

"I don't understand. I thought it was interference from Colmer. That you didn't realize he wanted you. Don't you realize there's not another ship that even knows who Shakespeare was, much less quotes him on cue? And he thought you might even like to play the Nurse. He was honestly impressed with your reading on the way here. Why, you're so perfect, it's like an answer to an impossibility. And he's got to have the very best there is. It's got to be perfect. . . she fought to control her voice, "It's just got to be perfect."

"Because it's the end for him?"

Kurla seemed to crumple in on herself and sagged against the bulkhead, unbidden tears in her eyes.

"God spare me a woman's tears," Helva said, angry and annoyed. "So it's his swan song and you've decided that I'm the ship to sing it?"

"Please. . . if you've a gram of humanity in you. . . " Kurla covered her tactless mouth with both hands, her eyes wide.

"Actually, about 22 kilos of me is very human, Kurla. . ."

"Oh, Helva, I'm so sorry," she stammered. "I'm so sorry. I had no right to come here. I'm sorry. I thought if I could just explain. . ."

Awkwardly she got to her feet, her muscles straining.

"I'd appreciate it if you'd forget I came here," Kurla went on in a very stiff, formal voice, fumbling for the door release. "It is always a mistake to act on impulse."

"Is it true that not one of the others knows Shakespeare?"

"I wouldn't demean myself with lies."

"So Ansra is making it very difficult."

The pride seemed to drain out of Kurla and she leaned her head wearily against the door for a moment, defeat showing in every curve of her slender body.

"She implies the most despicable things about him. She's said. . . never mind. But she is undermining him with the rest of the cast. And. . . and Helva, I don't trust her."

"Then have her replaced, you little idiot."

"Me? What could I do? I'm a medical attendant."

"Kurla, the man's dying. You can't be deluding yourself about that. . ."

"No. That's the one delusion I don't have." Something seemed to pull the girl erect then. "I just don't want him cheated out of this last perfect performance. His acting is all he has left and he's so good at it."

"You've influence with him, though. Get him to replace Ansra."

Kurla shook her head sadly. "He won't because he believes that she's the best Juliet available so he'll put up with her. . . temperament. And. . ." Kurla hesitated, the struggle with honesty apparent in her expressive face, "she was, when they rehearsed back at Duhr. Then. . . she changed. Overnight. Prane won't do anything. And she'll destroy him, Helva. I know it. Somehow she'll destroy him."

"Not while I've got my eye on her, she won't," Helva replied firmly.

The speed with which Chadress Turo arrived afterward struck Helva as suspicious, but she knew Kurla's visit had not been planned by Parollan. And she liked Chadress. He could not have been retired very long, for his step was springy and an old, unaltered shipsuit outlined a strong, muscular body. He wore a clutch of achievement stars but no honors, which meant he had plenty but was no braggart.

"Welcome board, Chadress Turo of Marak. It's nice to have a partner, however briefly."

Chadress caught the caustic undertone. "Hope I'm not the cause of your regrets?"

"No. You're the first happy face I've seen in the last two hours."

His eyes twinkled. "You've been put into Coventry by the brains and I had to be smuggled aboard to avoid outraged brawns. Oh, they'll all forget their pique. They always do. However, officially, you're in very good odor. Supervisor Parollan is taking personal credit for convincing you to accept. . ."

"The nerve of that pipsqueak. . ."

"I thought so," laughed Chadress. "Well, no matter. I'm not the only one who thought you'd be the only ship to do the job right and I've only rumors. . . and legends. . . to go by. But it's going to be a tricky mission with so much at stake, and so many explosive. . ."

"Personalities?"

Chadress laughed. "I've met many actors, I'm a classic buff myself, that's why I was called back. . ." he paused, his eyes seeing a middle distance, a slight frown on his face. "In fact, I leaped at the opportunity. Some of us should be allowed to die in harness. No matter. Here's the mission tape," and he dropped it in the slot. Before he touched the playback switch, he closed the lock and turned off all but the console audio. Then he eased into the pilot's chair and settled himself to listen.

Helva was amazed at how much of the tape's information she knew. The Nekkarese com man had had most of it correct.

A survey ship on a routine mission had intercepted pulsed energy emissions of tremendous power near Beta Corvi. They tracked the emissions to the sixth planet, a methane-ammonia giant, and assumed an orbit. Before they could prepare probes for exploration in such a corrosive atmosphere, they were contacted by the Corviki.

"It felt like pressure, as if a giant hand were covering my head and pressing knowledge into my brain," was the taped comment of the survey ship captain.

The unusual form of communication was nevertheless precise enough for the Corviki to grasp the nature of their unexpected visitors and to discover a commodity which they, unimaginably sophisticated scientifically, wanted.

"I guess the best analogy," the captain of the ship went on, "is that of the pure researcher who has devoted half a century to an intensive study of some esoteric subject. He masters it and finally has time to look around him and discovers that other things exist. . . like girls," the captain snickered, "and sex. He understands the theory but not the application, and he sure wants to learn."

Romeo and Juliet was a sample of the merchandise that had aroused the Corviki curiosity. If acceptable, the human company would teach understudies the full play, with movement adapted for the free-fall condition of Beta Corvi. Payment would be the Corviki process of stabilizing certain isotopes in the transuranian group whose power potential was unrealizable due to an exceedingly short half-life. Central Worlds badly needed such a process and the XH-834 was to ensure the success of this dramatic mission.

"Well, we'll give it the old home-world try," Helva said.

"You don't sound so sure."

"It sounds all too simple. For instance, this psyche transfer. How do we know it won't develop some unexpected snag and leave our people trapped down there in Corviki envelopes?"

"That's one reason we're equipping you with an override and a time control."

"Suppose the Corviki override me because they adore Colmer's Juliet?"

Chadress grinned at the notion, but threw the schematic picture of the transceiver circuitry onto the pilot's console. "Every eeg expert in the galaxy has had a go at these. There are no extraneous circuits, nothing that is not accounted for in the schematics. Furthermore, we manufactured them, not the Corviki. Now, they do specify that 7 hours is the endurance limit for our life form."

"Ahah!"

"Cool it. The transceiver has a time control, set for the maximum of seven hours, our time, so nothing could happen."

"After the maximum period, what happens to the personality if. . ."

"Don't invent problems. We've got enough. However, I did speak to the Survey Ship Captain and he was most encouraging about the transfer. In fact, he said it was perfect for a bunch of actors. You think that you want to be on the surface of the planet. And you are! No pain, no strain. Simplicity itself."

"Simplicity has a habit of expanding into catastrophe!"

Chadress called her a pessimist and went on with the briefing. She thought of half a dozen factors that could alter disastrously betwixt here and Beta Corvi, the least of which was ringing in an unknown device.

The adjustment to be attached to herself was even simpler. Even ingenious, she admitted, examining the compact device under microscopic lenses. It would link several infinitesimal strands already embedded in her cerebrum. One which extended deep in the area controlling the optic nerves, for the psyche transfer was triggered by this portion of the human brain. The other two were to link cross-over reflexes that would enable her to tune and to disconnect the psyche relay for the rest of the mobiles. All three synapse attachments were self-activitating and did not appear on the pilot's board.

The hookup had to be made with Helva under anesthesia, and she disliked that part intensely. It was unnerving for her to hear the chief of Regulus Base (no less) mouth the pitched syllables that triggered the panel that was the only access to her shell behind the titanium column. It seemed she hovered in an eternity of vulnerability before he touched the anesthesia release. She instinctively struggled against unconsciousness. Was that how poor 732 had felt? Or had her madness banished fear?

Helva's thought was no sooner formulated than she was conscious again. Startled, she gazed out into an empty cabin, irritated that Chief Railly dared leave her unprotected. Then she was aware that considerable time had elapsed since the chief had spoken, 18 hours, 20 minutes and 32 seconds, to be precise.

"Awake again, Helva?" and Chadress stepped into her lock. "I say, they certainly timed it to the exact second. I'm to ask if you've a headache?"

"Headache? How could I? I've no pain reflexes."

Then she looked around her main cabin, where transceivers had been stowed by her couches, and wall units had been added to accommodate the additional personnel. Bunks had been added to all her cabins and another table fitted into the pilot's cabin.

"I'm a ruddy troopship."

"Indeed you are," Chadress agreed, "and the troupe is assembling."

Five men ascended in the lift and were introduced by Chadress, but she found it easier to think of them as the parts they would play. The introductions were cut short by sirens and the advent of a fleet of ground vehicles.

"Ansra's made the scene," the man who played Prince Escalus announced in a dry voice.

No one seemed sorry when Chadress refused any boarders, including Chief Railly. As he took the restriction in good part, the others had to and Ansra was reduced to waving and smiling at her admirers as she was lifted smoothly lockward.

"Here I am again, Helva," she said in a bright, glad way that certainly didn't deceive Helva.

"Welcome aboard, Miss Colmer." You feed me the cue, Helva thought to herself, and I'll read the appropriate line.

Immediately Central Com, and it wasn't Niall Parollan's voice, gave her clearance for the Orbital Station. The shuttle run was fast, and in no time Helva was at the free-fall lock.

The scene was reminiscent of the Duhr landing, Davo, Solar Prane and Kurla the central figures of a smiling cluster. But here, the whole cluster entered, all of them floating with excellent control into the cabin, pushing down to the couches and securing themselves for maneuver and acceleration. There was neither wasted time nor motion.

Prane looked so gay and alert that Helva glanced at Kurla, whose attitude would transmit a truer reflection of her patient's health. The girl was radiant, her eyes as bright as Prane's, her manner proud and confident. She managed a polite nod to Ansra, who smiled fixedly at everyone.

By contrast, Davo looked tired and thoughtful. He pushed immediately toward the sleeping accommodations and meshed himself into a bunk.

Prane hovered in front of Helva. "I want to thank you, very much, for putting aside your personal preferences to undertake this venture. Chief Railly has assured me that you will have the topmost priority when you return."

Helva did not have time to analyze why his words disturbed her, for the Orbital Station transmitted good luck and clearance. Chadress did the manual piloting, that was protocol, but Helva was so used to doing things herself it was hard to watch. Not that he was inept. Damn, damn, damn, she thought, glancing around the crowded cabin, wishing half her mind were busy on something routine, how had she let herself get talked into this?

The moment Chadress announced turnover and freefall, Prane called a rehearsal. First he put the five men who had joined the ship planetside through the staging they had missed. They'd all worked in freefall and they knew their roles. All they required was time to familiarize themselves with movements and the Nurse's voice issuing from the wall. Ansra, however, chose to be difficult about that. She undulated toward the director, whether to charm him or intimidate him was a question.

"Really, Prane, I can project any emotion required of any capable actress, but to pretend an. . . an abstract voice is Juliet's Nurse is the end. How can I play to a wall? And, how may I ask, can. . . Helva (it seemed to be difficult for Ansra to name her) acquire any ease in free-fall, when I understand she has never made any use of a body?"

"My stage directions are perfectly clear and are printed in my circuitry. Therefore I cannot make a mistake. That is, as long as you are where Juliet is supposed to be," Helva answered.

No one actually laughed aloud at the putdown. Ansra resumed her proper position, frowning, and chewing her lip.

However, her assertion that she could project any emotion required of any capable actress seemed to fall short of the mark in scenes with proper actors. Her Juliet remained wooden and inadequate. She did not take fire from Romeo's speeches, although how she could fail was beyond Helva's comprehension. The man was inspired. . . and inspiring.

Relieved now for many days of the press of gravity on his spongy bones, buoyed constantly by the success of every other aspect of this singular production, Prane exuded a vitality, an enthusiasm that was contagious. He was apparently indefatigable.

As he was setting scene iv of Act I, with himself, Mercutio, Benvolio and others doubling up as maskers and torchbearers, Mercutio finished his speech: "Come, we burn daylight, ho!"

The scene had been quick, bright exchanges, the lighthearted nonsense of friends bound for a gay evening.

Mercutio repeated his line. Hastily, Helva remembered she doubled as prompter and found the place.

"Nay, that's not so," she read out.

Silence met this attempt, so she, too, repeated the line.

"We know the line," Prane said as this additional pause lengthened conspicuously. "Who says it?"

Helva gulped. "You do."

For a moment a terrible expression haunted his eyes. Then he burst out laughing and the terror was gone. "Tis always the littlest line that escapes," and he briskly cued Mercutio.

That night, as everyone slept, Prane was restless. Shamelessly, Helva turned up the volume in the cabin he shared with five other men. He was repeating scene iv over and over. Then he lay silent. Helva thought he slept, until she saw his right hand slowly creep to his belt, carefully extract a small pill from the waistband fabric of his shipsuit. With a gesture counterfeiting a random sleepy movement, the pill reached his mouth.

The secretiveness of his action, added to the intense rehearsal of that scene, gave Helva a tragic insight to the Solar. He was an addict, in the most horrifying degree: mindtrap, listed as harmless in the galactic pharmacopoeia, had become poisonous to him, fatal to mind and body. And he knew it. Yet more devastating to Solar Prane was loss of memory and to prevent that, he courted self-destruction.

Except for Ansra, rehearsals proceeded well. How Prane kept his temper with such deliberate obstructionism, Helva did not know. Every scene the Solara played began to sag, lose fire, drop pace. But Prane did not react. And Ansra apparently gave up trying to goad him into an action no one could condone. She took to needling Kurla, a far more vulnerable personality.

Fortunately, Nia Tubb, the Lady Capulet, shared the pilot's cabin, which was the women's room. She was wise in the ways of human relations and if she said nothing to the point, she did buffer Kurla from Ansra's hostility. She also helped Kurla in her lines, kept up a lighthearted monologue when the women were alone. But even she could see Ansra's tactics increasing the pressure on the sensitive, anxious medical attendant. "Honey, you have any real trouble with Colmer, you let me help, huh?" Nia Tubb said to Kurla one morning.

"Thanks," Kurla answered with a wan smile.

"Say, just between the two of us, Prane's no addict, is he? He doesn't look like one and I've seen enough to know, but still--"

"Solar Prane developed an adverse chemical reaction to long use of mindtrap."

"I always thought mindtrap was the most harmless thing in the world. I've used it myself times without number."

"Ordinarily. But the Solar has been using it for over 70 years. A residue of the silicon content, which ought to have been flushed out of his system, has built up in his tissues. He also has a liquid retention problem and the diuretic originally prescribed combined unfavorably with the mindtrap residue, leaching potassium from his system in an unremediable process."

"What does that mean? He looks fine to me." Kurla's voice, dispassionately clinical, was more tragic than tears.

"In low-grav conditions, in free-fall particularly, there is no strain on the skeleton and he's fine. But his bones are soft, a fall, a blow, any long period of heavy physical strain and he would. . . in effect. . . break up. And the silicon is gradually choking his vital organs to death."

"Replace 'em!"

Kurla shook her head. Nia. patted her hand rhythmically,. Helva interrupted them with a rehearsal call. And that was the worst rehearsal yet. Ansra's attitude had insidiously unnerved the entire cast, Evervone was off. They blew their lines, forgot stage business. When Mercutio and Paris got into a fight that was not in the script, Prane called a halt.

"We've gone stale. We will take today off and tomorrow. Helva, break out the finer rations. Nia and Kurla, would you be so kind, please, to see what surprises the gallev might serve up? Helva, have you some tri-casts of interest? We need to relate to the evervdav worlds that we have forgotten, immersed as we have been in ancient England."

Ansra stalked out of the main cabin, slamming the door to the women's Quarters. Helva looked in to find her staring angrily into a mirror. It was disconcerting for Helva to watch her frustrated, brooding self-examination while Nia and Kurla chattered inconsequentialities in the galley.

Helva tried to be everywhere, keeping an ear out for any trouble. . . any more trouble, that is. Davo floated purposefully toward Prane. Since Helva had been speaking onlv from the main cabin, she fostered the tendency for her passengers to forget she had ears and eyes everywhere in the ship.

"You must realize by now, Prane," Davo was saying, "that Ansra is determined to ruin this production. And she is succeeding admirably."

Prane regarded his friend for a long moment, a slow smile beginning. "You've a solution?"

"Let's put her off balance. Remember what we used to do on the long hauls on tour?"

"Reshuffle all the parts?"

"Exactly. Christ, we all know each other's lines and movements."

Prane began to grin mischievously. "And. . . let Helva be Juliet?"

"No, Kurla is Juliet!" Davo returned Prane's surprised stare with a dead serious dare.

"And Romeo?"

"That part need not change," Davo said evenly, then added in a light voice, "but I shall be Friar Lawrence and marry you two."

Prane waited till everyone had eaten and was relaxed with Thracian beer. The announcement met with approval, raucous and bawdy.

"I'll be Lady Capulet," Escalus announced in a squeaky falsetto.

"And I'll be Lady Montague," said Friar Lawrence in a quavering contralto, reverting to his own normal bass to add, "Always thought she was a wino."

"I'll be Escalus," Helva volunteered in a voice so like the real actor's the man dropped his tankard.

"You could be the whole damn play all by yourself," Davo vowed, his voice far more slurred than it should be on Thracian beer. "There isn't one part you couldn't do."

"Really? In that case, I'll be the Nurse," Ansra Cornier announced. "Then Helva can see how the part should be played."

"And Kurla will be Juliet," Davo cried, his eyes on Ansra. "Set the stage, oh chorus. Places, everyone. Places."

"Two households, both alike in dignity. . . " Helva began promptly in a basso, sweeping everyone into the act before they had time for second thoughts.

Davo came on as Sampson, and Chadress, normally Lord Capulet, as Gregory, hamming their lines and indulging in slapstick nonsense. Balthasar rolled on, as though drunk, slurring through the establishment of conflict between the two houses. Lines were rattled off, and actors bodily moved each other into proper stage position or deliberately upstaged the speaker.

When Escalus, Lady Capulet glided on in the company of Nurse Angelica, Ansra, with deliberate malice, dispensed with fun and played her part as she had not played Juliet. And somehow twisted her lines as Nurse to mean something entirely different. Her exit line, "Go girl, seek happy nights to happy days," was barbed enough to make Escalus falter.

But then Juliet met Romeo at the feast, and Ansra's spitefulness backfired. For Prane was a different, tenderer Romeo, his voice trembled not with fatigue but with newfound love, gentle, protective, eager. And Kurla, her eyes equally discovering her lover, was Juliet, breathless, shy, daring, and precious. She blushed shyly as she said,

"For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch, And palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss."

She turned her hands palms down on Romeo's, as he had so often directed Ansra only to have her mis-time the words and action as to make them meaningless.

Romeo raised Juliet's hands on his, and the ardor in his eyes, the answering joy in hers, made that little scene so tender that everyone was spellbound.

"Thus from my tips, by thine, my sin is purg'd" said Romeo in so soft a voice it seemed a faint echo, but it hung clearly until his tips met Juliet's in a kiss that was as devout an avowal as a shout.

Her role forgotten completely, Ansra flung herself forward at the two still embraced and lost to their surroundings. And the proximity alarms twanged. They had arrived at their destination.

"Now," Chadress said to the actors, all seated in the main cabin, hastily cleared of all its party debris, "the transceivers were fitted to your head sizes so they will be quite comfortable. You all heard the reports from those survey ship members who used the first device. You know the transfer process is painless and easy. You think yourself on the surface and there you are."

"How can you think yourself on a surface you've never seen?" Nia demanded, grimacing at the transceiver she was holding.

"The nearest analogue would be the underseascapes on Terra in the Carribean area, or the water world in Aldebaran. Or Vega IV. Imagine yourselves surrounded by seaweeds, all shapes and colors. Yes, the survey people repeatedly emphasized the enormous importance of color. The Corviki resemble a marine animal in the class hydrozoa, sort of a large sac-like body with a complex collection of tendrils that may be nerve endings."

"Gawd, what a costume!" Nia Tubb muttered, shuddering.

"It'll fit, I'm told." Chadress grinned at her. "Now, Helva is our fail-safe. She's equipped with an automatic return relay. We've been warned not to remain too long in the Corviki environment."

"Why?" Ansra demanded in a bored voice.

"The Corviki undoubtedly have good reason, but they did not say what. Now, Prane?"

The Solar rose, looked around at the entire cast "We all know the importance of this unlikely exchange of Shakespeare for power. The Bard has been translated into every conceivable language, alien and humanoid, and somehow the essence of his plays has been understood by the most exotic, the most barbaric, the most sophisticated. There is no reason to suppose that Will Shakespeare hasn't got something to say to the Corviki. . . if we do the job wholeheartedly. . . or whatever our Corviki envelopes use for that Organ.

"Ladies and gentlemen, curtain!" He sat down and donned his transceiver, settling back in the couch and relaxing completely. In a few seconds a light glowed across the rim of the transceiver.

"If that's all there is to it," Nia Tubb said, and pulled hers down on her head.

The others imitated her more or less simultaneously until only Chadress and Helva remained on board.

"Check Prane," Helva said.

"He's all right as far as I can see. I'll see you down there, Helva."

And he was gone. Helva had the uncanny notion that the new synapse leads were burning hot. But that was impossible. She willed herself to descend. On the heels of the thought that this was the first time she had been outside a shell in her life, came a terrifying surge of primitive fear and then. . . Transfer!

Her first indication of the difference involved pressure. . . an enveloping pressure. But the Corviki had said they would provide empty envelopes for the cast to occupy. She was enveloped and the envelope was also enveloped. She could 'feel' it all around. She undulated experimentally, hoping to rid herself of this sense of being covered. It was somehow unclean to feel all along every part of her. And yet, even as she felt loose, she was at the same time compressed. Not gravity pressure, but something in which she was and was moving. Well, movement was not a new skill for her. This was, then, just a form of motion. She wriggled again and things that were part of 'her' floated up from beneath her. She could not look at them because they floated away when she tried. Hmm. She could see every part of her ship-self from one scanner or another. How limiting mobility was. Well, she'd look around as far as she was able. And stared down, down, in an unlimited perspective until finally her sight distinguished a burbling, burping mass of ochre eruptions that she recognized as 'ground'. Above and around her fronds swayed, exhaled and inhaled in a full spectrum of colors unbelievably varied and varying. Colors which in some cases had 'sound' and 'smell' as part of their value. Only 'smell' was also a novel sensation to Helva, who had utilized gauges all her life instead of the olfactory sense.

"Adapting, Helva?" a familiar presence dominated her mind. Instinctively she turned toward the 'sound' that wasn't sound as she had previously known it, but a patterned interruption of the pressures around her.

"It's odd to feel physical sensations," she replied.

"It would be, for you."

"How do you feel, Chadress?" For the presence was indisputably her brawn.

"Velvet, soft, deep, a very pleasurable tactile sensation, I assure you. And a sense of unlimited power." Chadress was impressed. "Of being young and new again." Here the dominant quality of his thought was incredulous and self-amused. "They have evidently lent us brand-new, guaranteed-unsullied shells."

"I wonder where they get them from."

A new dominance approached them and this entity was recognized by both as being a true Corviki. The presence was very dense and Chadress and Helva both received an undeniable feeling of great age and wisdom, of a unique application of basic energy.

"I am your Manager," he introduced himself. "The others are all contained. We may proceed with this expression of energy."

"That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet," thought Helva as they propelled themselves toward a sphere-shaped area, surrounded by unanchored lumps of a dead black substance, framed by enormous breathing fronds. And suddenly, she could recognize everyone, despite their apparently homogeneous shape, by the slight variation of color tone and pressure weight.

Prane came on as dense as Manager, Helva discovered. She began to equate density with age or wisdom. Subjectively, she wondered how she 'felt' to others. Then Prane called her as chorus to open the rehearsal.

For a frantic moment, she wondered how she could possibly project 'chorus' without the audio equipment available on the ship. She had an intense desire to retreat back to her own shell again. But Prane was Director and one obeyed Director.

"Two households, both alike in dignity," and somehow her dominance enlarged, darkened, and she was more than herself.

Then Sampson and Gregory emerged from behind fronds and their dominance was shallow, light, tenuous as if inconsequential. In a fashion the cast managed to condense or dissipate themselves through the scenes until by Act IV, the new medium and the difference or exposition no longer seemed strange.

It was almost physically painful to be wrenched by the time control back into the ship and discover that they were, sadly, only flesh and blood. No one said much. They ate a great deal quickly, and then went to bed.

Helva, unfortunately, was wide awake and, for the first time in her conscious life, envied the others for the gentle oblivion of sleep. She tried not to think of the experiential effect of mobility on her conditioning. She disciplined herself by running a full scan outside. Not because anything might have changed but just to make sure all was as before. They were in orbit, black space topside, but the amorphous boiling cloud of diffuse colors, shot with brilliant lights, loomed below. She ran a check on her systems and discovered something a little unnerving in her engine compartment.

There was something blocking her readings there, yet the systems were all green on the boards. She could not 'feel' power, although there was no evidence of its absence. It was simply unavailable to her. As she pondered the implications of this, she heard a faint susurrus. She snatched at the diversion and traced it: Prane at his litany.

"If by your art, my dearest father, you have put the wild waters in this roar, allay them.. . . "

She listened avidly until the sleepy voice trailed into silence after "As you from crimes would pardon'd be. Let your indulgence set me free."

They picked up the staging the next 'day' where they had left off. Helva had the feeling none of the Corviki had left the 'stage' or were even aware that the troupe had been away. Did they control time as well as energy? Was time, as one Alpheccan theoretician maintained, merely another emission of energy?

Her perceptions were more acute today. She had control over her envelope and the sensory data it constantly received. And while the others were beginning to act, Ansra was consciously damping down.

Manager approached Ansra, in front of all, just before time was up.

"There is no logical reason to withhold energy. Conservation is not the aim of this experiment. We are assessing the effects of this form of energy expulsion on the pressure-senses and dominance factors. You inhibit this experiment. Therefore, lose energy as the equative factors require."

"Or?"

A ripple of pressure and color answered Ansra's ultimatum.

"The envelope will be permanently emptied. . ."

"I will not go back to that perverted seascape to be insulted and degraded in public," Ansra declared.

She was rather magnificent, Helva thought, even if she left her audience unmoved.

"That is sufficient, Ansra Colmer," Prane said quietly, rising from the couch, his voice glacial, his eyes stony, his attitude unbending. "You have made your personal preferences and private opinions known to each and every member of the cast. However, there is more at stake than personal differences and everyone here has been exceedingly forebearing with your whimsies and little schemes. You will go back tomorrow and you will, as you were advised by the Manager, lose energy as the equative factors require."

"Who's going to make me?" Ansra struck a pose with that challenge.

"Any one of us, honey," Nia Tubb replied, forestalling Chadress and Davo, who began to rise from their seats. "Any one of us would be glad to make you. In fact, you might find when we got through with you here that it would be a relief to get into that Corviki envelope."

"You wouldn't dare!"

Helva wondered whether Ansra, having taken a stand, was too hardheaded to retreat, or unable to believe that one of her standing could be violable. Fortunately, she was also a person who could not tolerate physical pain and a half-dozen open handed blows from Nia were an effective proof and promise.

"Oh, no you don't, honey," Nia cried, grabbing Ansra's arm as the sobbing woman headed for the cabin. "You're not moving from my side, because I don't trust you out of my sight. Now you sit down and you'll eat and you'll behave. And tomorrow you'll be the best Juliet that's ever trod air."

That scene, on top of the psychological exhaustion of rehearsing on Beta Corvi, drained everyone's reserve. Chadress and Kurla passed around liquor bulbs and a high-protein soup. As soon as they ate, people drifted off to their bunks and meshed in.

"Keep Nia and Ansra under observation, Helva, will you?" Chadress suggested.

There's something different about him, Helva realized, a new depth, oddly Corvikian.

"Do you think she will play now?" Helva heard Kurla asking Prane. The two were the last awake, and seemed unable to separate.

"Her color was that of an anger-fear composite. . ." Prane stopped short, staring down at Kurla.

"You're thinking Corviki," she laughed, her eyes dancing. "It's contagious, isn't it? Like assuming the characteristics of the part you're playing? See, even a rank amateur like me picks up tricks of the trade!"

"You transfer into a very solid, warm presence on Corvi, my dear."

The laughter caught in her throat and her eyes were filled with a haunted yearning. They seemed to be a breath away from a kiss when Prane, a garbled sound issuing from his throat, whirled away down the corridor.

Ansra lost energy the next rehearsal with such good will they were able to run completely through the play. Prane was so pleased with the result he informed the Manager that they could give the first complete performance.

"My energy group is excited to experience the total pressure dominances of these envelopes," the Manager replied, emanating the lavender-purples Helva equated with pleasure in Corviki. "Your next entry here is convenient?"

Prane agreed heartily.

"If this emission is satisfactory," Chadress asked, shading his dominance with the sharply controlled waste of deference to a superior force, "will Corviki entities then undertake a transfer of our patterns so we may fulfill our contract with you?"

"Affirmative. For it is evident that there is a loss of ego-entity superior to the programmed minimum. Entropy could exceed basic energy requirements."

Helva felt she'd better analyze that statement the moment she returned to herself. It sounded. . . ominous. . . to Helva, but not to her imprinted self in the Corviki envelope. Such a split of personality could be dangerous indeed.

Once back on the ship, it was easier to spot those who were psychologically twisting their orientation. They tended to express themselves in Corviki terms, as Prane and Chadress had the night before. The only one who seemed impervious was Ansra, but then, Ansra was so wrapped up in her personal grievances, she had no energy. . . there I go, moaned Helva. . . for objective experiences.

Opening night on Beta Corviki was a white-hot, frenetic triumph as far as Corviki acceptance of this form of energy loss was concerned. Beyond the stand of fronds were masses of Corviki, pulsing, throbbing as they absorbed the cast's emission, to all appearances starved for this form of energy.

Helva could feel her Corviki envelope swell to incredible dimension as the feedback resulted in a thermal reaction, giving her an unlimited mass to energize to a high excitation level. Yet she was also aware that the Corviki audience understood the conflict of the two warring energy-groups, of the desire of the two new, but not shallow, entities to combine into a new force group, of the energy-stoking of herself as the Nurse, of the brilliant light of beta particles exchanged by the two new entities, swearing neuron coalitions and, finally, forced to expend the vital energy of their cores to bring the warring groups to the realization that coexistence was possible on their energy level.

As the Prince summed up the entropy death of the two, novas of approval exploded outside the fronded area. And Helva, gross with feedback, found herself racing to emit into the nearest drained entity some ergs of that pressure, in a self-sacrifice that was ecstatic. All around her, the atmosphere crackled, popped, boomed and thundered with the resultant explosions as immeasurable positive forces recombined and all the previously expended energy was reabsorbed.

Then, indeed, did Helva bless the surgeons. Bless and curse them for hauling her inexorably back from such glorious intercourse. She dazedly recalled her scattered wits as warning lights and signals penetrated the coruscating impressions and forced her to be aware of imminent danger.

Lax figures lay, lifeless puppets with no more sign of vitality than the slight rise and fall of chests.

Scared, Helva tripped the transceivers. Lights reluctantly faded on the transceivers and still no one stirred. It seemed an eternity to Helva before Ansra moaned.

"Ansra. Ansra," Helva called in an insistent, hard voice, hoping to penetrate the woman's trancelike state. "Ansra. Ansra."

"Wha. . . what?"

"Get to the galley. Get stimulant K, in the blue i.v. spray."

It was like moving a robot. She kept droning her orders, relentlessly forcing Ansra to obey. The woman's eyes blinked, her body jerked as Helva encouraged, ordered, demanded the necessary actions. Finally she got Ansra's hands around the right i.v., and got the uncoordinated body to depress the dermospray against her arm. The stimulant took effect.

"Oh migod, oh migod," Ansra muttered hoarsely. "Oh migod."

"Ansra. Give them all injections. Move, woman, move."

The actress was still little better than an automaton, so Helva took advantage of her will-lessness to make her give Kurla and Prane the first injections. Then Chadress. It was a stunned group who returned to their former bodies.

"I don't think I can go back there," Escalus told Prane in a hoarse tremulo. He put both hands to his temples, where the transceiver had left a red band. "Never thought to see the day when I couldn't face an audience because they liked me too much. But man, that place is. . . is," his eyes widened with a terror he mastered. "I almost said, pure entropy." And he laughed. "But that's what's wrong with it all."

Prane, looking as drained and haunted as the others, managed a weak smile.

"There is no question that we have been overwhelmed by an unpredicted reaction. At this moment," and he paused to emphasize the phrase, "I would find a return engagement inconceivable. No, no discussion now. We need to convert mass, in the parlance of our hosts, into much-needed energy and to conserve our emissions. But I want to say how very, very proud I am of you all."

It was as well, Helva knew, for the cast could not have accepted, in their present enervation, the devastating truth of their captivity.

The silence of the ship was unbroken, even by Prane's nightly litany. Helva, too, found herself close to the verge of unconsciousness, too fatigued to worry about the problems of the morrow.

The next day brought no visible change. Everyone was still enervated. Kurla turned professional and roused those seeking oblivion in slumber to take high protein meals and massive therapeutic i.v. sprays.

Toward the evening of that day, Helva got Chadress alone in the galley for a conference.

"We'll have to put it off as long as we can, Helva. These people are drained dry. I know," and he shook his head slowly. "How're you doing?"

Helva temporized. "I always maintained shell-people are as human as anyone mobile. I know it now. I'll find it extremely difficult to go back to Beta Corvi myself. Only I know we have no choice."

"What do you mean, Helva?" Chadress didn't have enough energy left to be more than mildly curious.

"They're wondering where we are right now. They have the understudies lined up and raring to learn."

Chadress mustered a defeated groan.

"Helva, how can we ask anyone here to undertake that?"

"As I said, Chadress, we have no choice."

"I don't follow you."

"There is a little block on any lead into my power sources. I couldn't even dodge a meteor if I had to."

Chadress dropped his head into his hands, his whole body shuddering. "Helva, I can't go back. I can't. I'd. . ."

"You don't have to go back. Not right now. Lord, you don't even have the energy to put on a transceiver," she said, deliberately misunderstanding him. "It's up to me."

"What's up to you?" Prane asked, drifting into the galley.

"I'm going down to explain our absence."

"On the contrary," Prane objected, trying to straighten his shoulders but all he managed was a directionless lurch against the warming units. "I'm the director. I should explain our inability to fulfill our contract."

Chaddress groaned in distress.

"You're out on your feet, Prane. Chadress, too. I'm going. That's final. Chadress, we'll discuss this further when I get back," she ordered. "Chadress?" she prompted until he nodded acquiescence.

Pain assailed Helva's mind in a brief flicker of thought as she reentered the Corviki envelope. The myriad tactile sensations from her trailing appendages indicated the presence of several strong pressure-dominances. How was she going to explain human frailty to these masters of pure energy?

The atmosphere, however, was unusually free of energy emissions. Manager, dark and full and rich, discreetly contained his mass of pressure-dominances. The others, ranged beyond him at a courteous distance, must be the understudies, she thought. If a Corviki had compassionate levels in his consciousness, surely the Manager was activating them, for he was patient as Helva struggled to present the explanatory equation, pointing out the unresolvable fractions. He replied with a show of depletion that could only be an apology that the unprecedented feedback and the production of an unstable reaction mass had resulted in such entropy for the visitors. However, they had themselves as cause.

Nevertheless, Manager sternly informed Helva, a new condition of immense significance had developed. Every single energy group around this thermal core insisted on obtaining the formulae which could repeat those unique emissions. The benefits of such expulsion would rejuvenate static energy groups once considered lost beyond reactivation. The formulae must be passed on. No matter would be considered too precious in the exchange.

Helva, feeling she was emitting desperate energies, repeated the impossibility.

Some arrangement would have to be effected, the Manager insisted. There was one unit, he drew the equation of sound that meant Juliet, which had shown an admirable control of intrinsic energy. Let it return and deliver the formulae. Otherwise. . . the Manager swayed his tentacles in an unnerving approximation of a human shrug.

For a long interval Helva lacked the moral courage to indicate her return. She tried to think how this simple mission had turned into such a catastrophe. Ruthlessly she reviewed the elements of this impasse, trying to find a solution. There had to be one.

How cosmically ironic that Ansra Colmer, so bent on ruining them, was the only personality with sufficient egocentricity to survive the experience. But would she save them all?

"I'm not out of my mind, even if you all are," was Ansra's immediate response. "Nothing. . . not even if you beat me to death. . . could make me go back to that. . . that. . . gas factory. I've done all my contract called for."

"Actually you haven't, Ansra," Davo replied wearily, "not that any of us are likely to take you to task for it at Guild. But those contracts read that, if the Corviki accept our dramatic presentation as payment for their techniques, we must instruct Corviki understudies."

"Go back? Just to teach a Corviki to play Juliet?" Ansra laughed, shrilly, semi-hysterical. She whirled oa Prane. "I told them at Regulus that you'd fail. And you have! I'm glad, glad, GLAD!"

Her hatred washed like a visible tide over sensibilities already abraded and tender. Still laughing, she careened off the walls on her way to the cabin, collapsing like a limp doll in front of the mirror, alternately laughing and staring at her reflection.

"She's gone stark raving mad," Nia stated in a flat voice.

"I don't think so, unless we're all mad right now," Davo replied judiciously.

"Well, we can't just sit here and let her spite us," Nia exclaimed, rousing to indignation. "She's just got to do her part."

"The show must go on?" Escalus asked sarcastically. "Not this one."

"I apologize to everyone," Prane began, rising to his feet. "Ansra's grievance is with me. You shall not be the victims of it."

"Christ, Prane, spare us that role," Davo exploded.

"No role, the solution is simple," the Solar went on his voice and manner so matter-of-fact that the accusation of heroics was void. "As director, I know every single line in this play. In fact, I have complete recall of some 212 ancient, medieval, classical, atomic, and modern dramas."

"You'd die under the strain," Kurla cried, throwing her arms around him.

He disengaged himself, smiling tenderly at her.

"I'm dying anyway, my dear. I'd prefer a good exit line."

"Next week East Lynne," roared Helva, successfully shocking everyone alert with her mocking laughter. Prane was deeply hurt, which Helva found a trifle healthier than heroic self-sacrifice. "Now will everyone calm down. All is not lost because Ansra Colmer is a vicious, vengeful bitch. In the first place, Solar Prane, we don't want the Corviki possessed of our entire bankroll in one mass cathartic purge. One play, Romeo and Juliet, which has rolled 'em up by the fronds, is all we contracted for. And we shall give it to them and then accelerate out of their sphere of influence as fast as I can blow my jets. I shall strongly, urgently recommend that we do not darken their dominance again until our bright boys figure out how to cushion our fragile psyches against Corviki feedback.

"And, Solar Prane, you are not the only person on board with perfect recall. I know this may sound fatuous but I, too, probably Davo as well, possibly our Escalus, know every bloody line of R & J, too. All three of us are physically and emotionally better able than you to go back down to Beta Corvi. . ."

"Listen to me" she bellowed when everyone began to protest. She shifted to the voice that signified a broad smile and hammed it. "This is Your Captain speaking!" And as they broke into laughter, became dead serious. "I, Helva, have the final responsibility for this mission and for everyone on board the ship."

"I know all of Romeo and Juliet, too. Used to play Juliet, you know, when I was in my first hundred," Nia said quietly, before Helva could continue. "And you've forgotten something, Helva. A very essential point. It's performances, on Beta Corvi, not rehearsals, which rock us. I feel sure I could cope with a rehearsal situation, with the customary halts and breaks needed to teach understudies. We don't even have to rehearse the full seven hours. Not if these Corviki want the plays so bad. We can call the tune." Then her expression changed and she glanced toward the women's cabin, where Ansra was laughing softly. "And I'll be goddamned if I'11 let that bitch close the most successful show I've ever been in."

Escalus roared with laughter and embraced Nia in a mighty hug. "By the toenails of the seven saints of Scorpius, neither will I!"

"I'm game, too," Benvolio agreed, "and bugger her!" he added with a rude gesture in Ansra's direction.

"Look, Helva, get the Corviki to give us another day's rest," Chadress said. "Thea we'll all go down and finish the job. The show must go on!"

"Who'll do Juliet?" Davo asked and then answered his own question by pointing directly at Kurla. "You'll do Juliet."

"Oh, no. Not me!"

"Why not, my sweet young love?" asked Prane, pulling her hands from her cheeks and kissing her tenderly before them all. "You're more Juliet than she at her best."

"I'm worried about only one thing," Escalus said then. "I don't like her here, with us, there," and his forefinger punctuated his words with stabs in the proper directions.

"A very good point," Davo agreed with a whistle.

"No problem," Helva assured them. "Miss Colmer is. . . resting, I believe the professional term is. I shall encourage it." And she proceeded to flood the pilot's cabin with sleepy gas.

The Manager signaled acceptance, emitting relief that the problem had a solution. Helva sent everyone off to bed after a protein-rich meal. Kurla and Nia preferred to bunk on the couches despite the fact that Helva had cleared the gas from the cabin. Kurla agreed to administer a timed sedative to Ansra to keep her unconscious while there was no one in the ship.

The cast voted to limit the first rehearsal to 4 hours. However, all apprehensions vanished when it became evident to the troupe that the understudies were very discreet with energy emissions. In fact, back at the ship again, there was a mood close to hysterical relief.

"Those Corviki are the quickest studies I've ever worked with. Tell 'em once and they just don't forget," Escalus exclaimed.

"Yes, they are holding back, aren't they," Davo agreed. "But will they know how much to emit, to make the show come alive? I mean, there's that old difference between amateur and pro."

"Good point, Davo," Prane said, "and one I discussed with Manager. I talked over unconserved energy levels with him and he assured me that he had taken measurements during our performance so that they will know when to emit energy to produce the proper reactions. He has great dominance, that man, great dominance."

"And a fine sense of level integrities, too," Chadress added, nodding thoughtfully.

"You sound more Corviki than human," Nia said in her droll way.

Prane and Chadress looked at her, their expressions puzzled.

"Well, you do," Kurla agreed.

"Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, you know," Prane said into the silence, but, to Helva, his joviality sounded forced.

The second rehearsal went so well that Prane decided only one, slightly longer additional session would complete the contract.

"Let's get it over with then," Escalus said. "There's something seductive about that freak-out place that gets to you. I've a hard time thinking human."

Escalus was right, Helva thought. She found it all too easy to think in Corvikian terms. And Prane and Chadless seemed to have moved theatre semantics into another frame of reference entirely. She'd heard them discussing staging in terms of excitation phases, shell movements, particle emissions, subshell directionals until she wondered if they were talking theatre or nuclear physics.

She kept an eye on Prane, anyhow. Kurla was too, but playing Juliet to Prane's Romeo was overloading her circuits sufficiently to cloud her discretionary. . . Helva caught herself up sharply. The sooner they all got away from here, the better.

She watched Kurla administer an additional sedative to Ansra. The woman had been kept unconscious for 40 hours. Five more wouldn't hurt her. It had certainly improved the ship's atmosphere.

She told Kurla that she'd be down directly and then checked all circuitry on the ship. Once the Corviki removed that power block they could leave, but she wanted no last-minute delays.

Prane was offstage when she got down, dominating with his understudy. She found hers and then was swept into scene ii of the fourth act.

The Corviki had more trouble this cycle controlling their suppressed energy. It occurred to Helva that Davo need not have worried that the dramatic content would be lacking. Remove all the instructors with their frail spirits, and the Corviki would deliver every bit of excitation required by the formulae.

Helva had to expend effort now to control excitement. Prane did, too, for as he and his understudy, the two Balthasars beside them, waited to enter the churchyard for Romeo's death scene, he seemed to be leaking energy.

"The time controls are fixed?" he asked nervously. "They cannot be altered?"

He was on before Helva could answer.

The rehearsal was soon over. The Manager had to exert tremendous control over his spontaneous emissions as he complimented the actors. He announced that the information on isotope stabilization had been sent to the ship in a specially prepared container, and that the ship's power was unblocked. He kept emitting on such a broad baud that Helva felt the insidious tug of entropy and resolutely made her farewells.

Transferring back, it took her a moment, a moment of regret that seemed an eternity, to get her bearings. She detected the container neatly secured in her engine room, violently radioactive as yet, so it had better stay where it was.

Someone groaned in the dimly lit cabin. Dimly lit? But she hadn't lowered the lights!

She brought up every light in the ship, scanning the pilot's cabin for Ansra. The bed was empty. How had she thrown off the drug? Helva did a searching scan and found Ansra, crouched down by Prane's body. In her hands were the wires that led to the transceivers on Prane and Kurla.

"Ansra, that's the same as murder!" Helva roared, trying with sheer volume to stun the woman. With the determination of vengeance, Ansra ripped the helmets from their users and tried to tear the units apart.

Even as Ansra was acting, Helva triggered the return on the transceivers, desperately hoping that she'd forestall Ansra's intention. It seemed so long, with the woman's harsh panting as metronome, until transceiver lights winked out across the rim of the helmets. On one, the light remained. On Chadress.

"Davo! Davo!" Helva shouted.

The actor, shaking his head as the urgency of her voice roused him, responded dazedly. Then he saw Ansra, saw what she was doing and launched himself at her. Davo's thrust pinned her against the far wall as other members of the cast began to revive.

"Escalus, help Davo with that crazy woman," Helva ordered, for Ansra was twisting and screaming, beating at Davo with maddened strength. "Benvolio, come on, man. Snap out of it. Check Chadress. How's his pulse?"

Benvolio leaned to the limp body beside Mm. "Too slow, I think. It's so. . . so faint."

"I've got to get back to Corvi. Someone, Nia, you're awake. Find two usable transceivers in the mess Ansra made of them and put 'em on Prane and Kurla. I've got to get them back here."

"Wait, Helva." She heard Davo call as she was in the act of transferring.

The Manager was beside her. And so were the shells that were undeniably Prane, Kurla, and Chadress. Their pressure dominances were overwhelming.

"Stay with us, Helva. Stay with us. It's a new life, brand new, with all the power in the universe to control. Why go back to a sterile life in an immobile envelope? Stay with us."

Too tempted, too terrified to listen further, Helva retreated to the safety of her ship, the sanctuary of the only security she knew.

"Helva!" Davo's voice rang in all her ears.

"I'm back," she murmured.

"Thank God. I was afraid you'd stay with them."

"You knew they'd stay?"

"Even without Ansra's help," Davo admitted. Beyond him Nia nodded.

"It's the answer for Kurla and Prane, you know," Nia said. "Hell, they can combine energies now," and her laugh was mirthless.

"But Chadress?"

"Shock you, huh, that a brawn would defect?" Davo asked sympathetically. "But he wouldn't be a brawn much longer, would he, Helva?"

"And what if I had stayed?"

"Well," Davo admitted, "Chadress didn't think you could, but he did think you should."

"It was a case of being where I am needed, Davo. And sometimes you have to help by not doing anything, I guess," she added, more to herself. She looked then toward the four breathing but lifeless bodies. "Four." she cried aloud, stunned to identify Ansra, laid beside the others. "What did you do? How could you do it?"

"Easy," Nia replied, shrugging negligently. "A case of the punishment fitting the crime. Besides, the Corviki are better qualified to deal with unstable energies than we are, Helva. Can't we leave now?"

"Manager said the exchange had been made," Escalus said. "Have they unblocked your power?"

"Yes," Helva sighed, unwilling to act yet.

"Helva," Davo murmured gently, his hand palm down on the titanium column, "Helva, the play was the thing, wherein to catch the conscience."

As she wearily fed the return voyage tape into the computer, his words echoed in her mind like a gentle absolution.

With an exquisite sense of reprieve, Helva watched official debriefing experts disperse to their waiting vehicles that clustered in the floodlights at the base of the XH-834 like energy motes. . . Helva censored that analogy. Night-piercing lights blinked on, jabbed in crisscross webs as the groundcars turned and wheeled. All momentarily were parallel, outlining the darkened lower stories of Regulus Base tower. Not all the vehicles made for this structure, Helva noted. Some darted beyond, out of the Base complex, into the distant metropolis.

Shell-people were presumably inexhaustible, but Helva felt drained and depressed. She was not sure which experience had been the worse, coping with Beta Corvi or with the repetitive questioning of the affair by singleminded specialists. She could appreciate why Prane had made use of mindtrap to retard neuron loss. Had she no memory banks to scan, she might cheerfully have forgotten much of what had happened. Too bad she couldn't.

Helva sighed. Not, Helva, the XH-834, sleek BB ship of Central Worlds Medical Service, but Helva, the woman.

They encase us in titanium shells, place the shells in titanium bulkheads and consider us invulnerable. Physical injury is the least of the harmful accidents that this universe inflicts on its inhabitants; it is soonest mended.

Lights began to appear in the Base Tower and Helva was perversely delighted. So, others would have a sleepless night tonight. They deserve it, unsettling her fragile resolution of the Beta Corvi affair with their barrage of questions. How powerful was the Corvi community? How large were the individual entities? How long did she believe the human/Corviki shells that contained Prane, Kurla, Chadress, and Ansra would retain their previous loyalties and memories? How soon could, should a second expedition attempt to broach their atmosphere? What other mediums of exchange would Helva recommend, assuming Prane's encyclopedia of drama was bled from him? And why did she feel that the Corviki environment was so dangerous to the human mind? Could she explain the dangers? Could she recommend preventive measures to be used in preconditioning?

There was no consolation in the fact that every other member of the mission was also being closely interrogated, prodded and probed, physically as well as mentally. At least she was spared that, although the shell medics had run an acidity test and checked the intake on the nutrients that sustained her. There had been a rise in the protein flow, which was deemed consonant with the unusual activity required of her.

The Base computers were going to get a workout tonight, but she didn't want to have to think at all. Not about the Corviki, at any rate, or the four humans who had opted to remain in Corviki shells, to exchange and lose energy in the new sub-orbital. . .

"I don't want to think at all," Helva said aloud.

Restlessly she scanned outside, her glance reaching briefly the lighted windows in the brawn barracks. She felt no desire to place a call there. She hadn't the requisite flexibility to enjoy contact with new personalities, usually such a reviving and stimulating experience for her. She didn't want, either, to be alone tonight.

"This time I get a brawn before I move a centimeter from this base," she vowed.

The Service cemetery where Jennan lay buried was mercifully lost in darkness kilometers across the huge Base field, but she began to feel that distance psychologically diminishing.

Rather than dwell on that closed chapter of her life, she masochistically reviewed the last few hours. Had she really given them all the information available to her? Was she subconsciously withholding a single important fact or minor observation? Had she really analyzed the schizophrenic trauma of the human mind in the Corvi shell? Had she. . .

A groundcar braked to a rocking drop at the base and someone activated the passenger lift, which she had not withdrawn when the last of the debriefing group had left.

"Who the hell. . ."

"Parollan!" a sharp voice reassured her in the Supervisor's curt way.

As her Service Supervisor, Niall Parollan had naturally been present during debriefing. He had kept to the role of arbiter, speaking only when the experts had got excited or too insistent on points that Helva was unable to clarify. She had been grateful as well as impressed by his unexpectedly deft handling of the incidents. Evidently Parollan enjoyed considerable prestige in spite of his blunt manners. Was he returning for a private session?

He stepped into the airlock, feet spread, arms dangling at his side. He was glaring at her column with unexpected belligerence.

"Now what have I done?" Helva asked, masking a sudden apprehension.

As he broke the pose and swaggered forward, Helva wondered if he had been drinking heavily.

"I claim refuge, milady," he replied, bowing with exaggerated flourishes.

"And a cup of coffee?"

"You're out of it. Those fardling circuit-clowns drank it all up. But you're off bounds and incommunicado 'sfar as Cencom knows, my orders, m'love -so you're the safest place for me to be."

"You're not in trouble over the Beta Corvi. . ."

"Trouble?" and he sat down on the couch facing her column, suddenly collapsing limply back against the cushions. "Hell no. Not my Helva gal. Not Niall Parollan, Supervisor extraordinary. But we are," and a wild sweep of his arm suggested galactic rather than service parameters. "Well, you're not to be bothered, and I'm not to be bothered, and by morning, maybe the ol' brains'll be ready for more draining and dredging and. . ." his voice ground down to a whisper.

Helva thought he had gone to sleep, but then she saw that he was regarding her through narrowed eyes.

"Did anyone remember to tell you how far you exceeded optimimum expectation? Did the Chief remember to mention you've got two more commendations on your distinguished record? And a whopping bonus!" He pounded the couch in emphasis. "You'll Pay-off, if you keep up this rate." Then his voice softened. "Did I remember to thank you, Helva, for pulling off a lousy, fardling, stinking job you got conned into. . ."

"Not by you, Parollan. . ."

"Ha!" Niall Parollan arched his body to let out that burst of laughter before he sank again into the cushions. "Well, you did a great job, gal. I don't think another ship could have pulled it off."

"Maybe another ship would have brought all her passengers back,"

"Of all the noisome fardles, Helva," and Parollan sat straight up, "I don't need that kind of irrational thinking from you! Prane and Kurla had their own reasons for transition; so did Chadress. All three profited. As for Ansra Colmer, best place for that bitch. Outsmarted herself for once. There is true justice in the universe, and the Corviki never heard of Hammurabi!"

He lay back again, lacing his fingers behind his head.

"I like to see 'em sweat, those nardy bastards in Procedures," he chuckled.

"Over the bodies? Wouldn't decent burial be indicated by now?"

"Why? The bodies are still clinically alive, Helva. Your body is clinically dead," he added with utter disregard for the tacit strictures on that subject in the presence of a shell-person. "And neither you nor I, nor anyone else on this Base tonight thinks you're a zombie. What does constitute death, Helva? The lack of mind, or soul, or what-have-you? Or the lack of independent motion? You're mobile enough, my pet, and you can't move a muscle."

"You're drunk, Niall Parollan."

"Oh, no! Parollan's a long way from drunk. I'm just hanging loose, gal, hanging loose." He sat up in a single movement that denied any impairment of motor control. "Ethically, socially, you delivered four corpses to that Fleet ship outside Beta Corvi. Four mechanically functioning but empty husks. And their original inhabitants, owners, what-have-you, won't be back in 'em."

He was on his feet, striding toward Helva. "There's your chance, gal. Opt out. . . opt out into Kurla's body, it's the youngest. Or Ansra's. Or Chadress' for that matter, if you'd like a change of pace."

For one blinding second of whirling possibilities, Helva considered the staggering proposal. As she had fleetingly considered remaining in the Corvi shell. Had she really presented an unbiased report to the specialists?

"Presuming, of course, that I want to be a mobile human. Remember, Parollan," she managed to answer in a reasonable voice, "I've just been in another body. I find I prefer myself."

Parollan was staring at her with an inscrutable intentness. He put one hand out to stroke the smooth metal on the exact spot where the seam closed access to her inner shell.

"Well put, Helva, well put." He turned and walked to the galley. He was dialing for soup, not a stimulant, Helva noticed with relief. He sat down again in the main cabin before he broke the heat seal. The wisp of escaping steam seemed to mesmerize him, for he shook his head as the pop of the released top broke the semitrance.

"I didn't think you'd go it," he remarked in a casual tone.

"Why did you ask then? Testing, Supervisor?"

He glanced up, chuckling at the purring tone in her voice.

"Not you, m'gal. . ."

"And I am not your gal. . ."

"Irrelevant!" and he took a careful sip of the hot soup.

"Then why did you ask?" she insisted.

He shrugged. "Seemed like a once-in-a-lifetime chance to get you out of that titanium chastity belt."

Laughter burst from Helva. "I've been out. On Corvi."

"Tried it once and didn't like it?"

"Movement? Freedom?" she asked, deliberately ignoring the double meaning expressed in the cocked eyebrow and malicious grin on Parollan's face.

"Physical movement," he qualified, his manner wary. "Physical freedom."

"Define 'physical'. As this ship, I have more physical power, more physical freedom, than you ever will know. I think, I feel, I breathe. My heart beats, blood does flow through my veins, my lungs do work: not as yours, but they are functioning."

"So are the hearts and veins and lungs of those four. . . four nothings in the life support room of Base Hospital. But they are dead."

"Am I?"

"Are you?"

"You're drunk, Parollan," she accused in a flat, cold voice.

"I'm not drunk, Helva. I'm discussing a deep moral issue with you and you evade me."

"Evade Niall Parollan? Or Supervisor Parollan?"

"Niall Parollan."

"Why are you discussing this deep moral issue with Helva, Niall Parollan?"

Unexpectedly he shrugged and leaned back, his shoulders sagging as he lapped his fingers around the soup cup and regarded its contents moodily.

"Passes time," he said finally. "We both have time on our hands tonight. Time that must be passed some way or other. Silly to waste our valuable time (and he gave a sardonic laugh) in small talk. Might just as well discuss a deep moral issue which, I might point out, you dumped into our laps. Which no one's going to resolve anyway. You should've made the Corvi clear their garbage before you cleared their fartful atmosphere. Say, did you smell that stuff they breathe?"

Helva found herself answering his question while another part of her rapidly churning mind wondered at his remarkable behavior.

"I, Helva, have no olfactory sense, so I, Helva, wouldn't have noticed how the Corviki atmosphere 'smelled'. None of the others mentioned it, so I assume that, for Corvi entities, the atmospheric odor was unexceptional."

"Aha!" The thin forefinger jabbed at her accusingly. "You don't have that physical ability."

"Nor am I sure that I want it. . . except to smell coffee, which everyone says smells particularly pleasant."

"Remember to order some in the morning."

"Order's already on file with Commissary," Helva said sweetly.

"That's my gal."

"I'm not your gal. And, at the risk of being a bore, why are you here, Niall Parollan?"

"I don't want to be bothered by those fardling specs," he muttered, jerking a thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the Base Tower, "and I would be if they could reach me. They can't here because Cencom is not allowed to admit any calls to you, Helva XH-834, until 0800 because you, Helva m'gal, have had enough of them for one revolution. Haven't you?" His question crackled in the air. "Don't deny it," he advised when she didn't answer immediately. "I know you well enough. . . oh, I know you, gal, like no other man ever has. . . and you were so close to telling them to stuff it, you were so close to. . ." his voice trailed off briefly. "This assignment was a lot rougher on you than you'll ever admit."

She said nothing.

He nodded and took another mouthful of soup.

"You aren't drunk," she said.

"I told you that." He grinned at her.

"I hadn't realized," she went on in a light tone to hide the fact that she was deeply touched by his unexpected empathy, "that ship-sitting was a function of a Supervisor."

He waggled a lean finger expressively. "We have wide discretionary latitude."

"And am I really incommunicado until 0800 or were you merely keeping me from meeting personable brawns?"

"Hell no," he explained, his eyebrows arching in protest. "That's absolute fact you can check out. You can call out, you know. It's just no one can call in. And. . ."

"You're here to divert me from calling the brawns."

"That woman's got brawns on the brain!" he exploded. "Go ahead," he urged, "call the brawns in. Rouse the whole barracks. We'll have a swinging party. . ." He was halfway to the console.

"Why are you here?"

"Hey, moderate your voice, gal. I'm here because you're the safest place for me to be." He turned back to her again, grinning wickedly. "Sure you don't want to call the brawn barracks?"

"Positive. Why are you escaping?"

"Because," and he dropped down onto the couch again, making himself quite comfortable. "I've had it with their nardy questions and suspicions and. . ."

"Suspicions?" Helva pounced on the word.

Niall made a crude noise. "They (and his fingers flicked in the direction of the Tower's lit windows) got fardling damned theories about schizoid brains and blocks and that kind of drift."

"About me?"

Again the expressive rude noise. "I know you, gal, and so does Railly and we're taking none of that crap about you"

"Thanks."

"Don't get snide with me, Helva," and Parollan's voice turned hard. "I'll make you work your ass off for the Service. I'll make you take assignments you don't want because they're good for you and the Service. . ."

"Good for me? Like the Corvi affair?"

"Yes, damn your eyes, good for you, Helva. For the woman inside that armor plate."

"I thought you were urging me to come out of my armor plate. . . into Kurla's body."

Parollan was still. His angry eyes seemed to bore through the column into her shell. Abruptly he relaxed and leaned back again, apparently at ease, but Helva noticed the small contraction of jaw muscles.

"Yes, I was, wasn't I?" he said mildly. With a sigh, he swiveled his feet up on the couch and yawned in an exaggerated fashion. "You know, I've never heard you sing. Would you oblige?"

"To keep you awake? Or would you prefer a lullaby?"

Niall Parollan yawned again, laced his fingers behind his head, crossed his neatly booted ankles and stared up at the ceiling.

"Dealer's choice."

Surprisingly, Helva felt like singing.