Part 17 (1/2)
**Ed's primary memories and physical characteristics have been merged into our system. We require additional time to collect further ambient environmental data, plus redefining adjustments on Ed.**
Jael looked around cautiously.What do you want me to do!
She felt an odd whirring sensation that seemed to surround her hearing and vision, before she heard: **Insufficient capacity for all aspects of the environment. Explore elements of this environment that you would most like recorded, taking Ed with you, if possible, for contextual fit.**Jael blinked, absorbing the instruction. She looked at Ed. ”Well, Ed ... what happened, I think, is that you're now living two lives. One of them is in my head.”
”Hawwwww-k-k-k?” He peered at her.
”Yes. Well, it's a little hard to explain, really. But a part of you is living with me now ... and it will go with me when I leave. Along with a memory of this place.” She gulped, wondering if Ed could possibly understand what she was saying.
Ed hopped closer. ”I come with you? K-k-k-k?”
”In a manner of speaking, yes. You've been split. You'll be here. But you'll also be with me.”
”Ramand of one Mariella Flaire, an affable businesswoman whose homeport was the same as the s.h.i.+p's next destination, a world named Vela Oasis. Flaire was a tall woman with rosy skin and silver-streaked reddish hair drawn back into a tight coif. She spoke with Ar and Jael for almost two hours, showing them the pertinent logs and reviewing their rigging performance records. Flaire seemed favorably impressed.
Jael felt a pa.s.sing urge to ask why she was even being considered for the job - she had, after all, killed her last captain - but Flaire addressed the question without being asked. Looking straight at Jael, she said, ”You come well recommended by the police investigation team. They said that you know how to take care of yourself, and your psych-profile is good. I guess you had a tough flight last time.”
Jael opened her mouth and closed it, staring at the woman. She seemed to be waiting for a reaction. Jael didn't know what to say, so she just swallowed and nodded. Flaire's eyebrows went up a fraction of an inch. ”Is it safe to say that if I don't give you a hard time, you won't give me a hard time? Can we work together?”
For a moment, Jael felt her voice frozen in her throat. The last time she'd trusted a s.h.i.+p's captain ...
But this isn't Mogurn. Ar trusts her, and Ar can read emotions better than I can. Something loosened in her voice then, and she heard herself saying, ”Yes, ma'am. I'd like that a lot - to be able to work together. To cooperate.” The words, in her mouth, sounded empty; but in truth, she meant them.
Flaire cracked a smile and turned her attention back to the records, nodding in apparent satisfaction. Jael remained silent after that, her heart thumping.
A short time later, Flaire granted them their commission, and they shook hands all around. They would be lifting off the next morning.
Stars.h.i.+pSeneca was a tall, s.h.i.+ny craft, no larger then Jael's last s.h.i.+p, but with a steely, needlelike appearance that contrasted withCa.s.sandra's teardrop shape. Jael hoped, gazing up at it, that it would contrast in other ways, as well.
”It looks well kept,” Ar remarked, standing with her on the ramp. ”The maintenance log was quite complete.”
Jael nodded. Her thoughts were scattered. She was thinking about the world they were setting sail for, and wondering how they would fare on it; she was thinking about rigging with Ar, and wondering what it would be like to have a partner in the net, after flying alone with Mogurn; she was thinking about Dap, whose gold chain she still carried. She was thinking about a bird whose personality and memories she carried in tiny data grains in her pocket; and she was thinking about Highwing. ”Shall we board?” she murmured.
Ar hefted his bag, and together they strode up the ramp. A lift took them to the entry point, high on the s.h.i.+p's gleaming silver flank. Stepping aboard, they found the flight deck, bridge, and living quarters. The accommodations were arrayed along the s.h.i.+p's long axis, flanking a central hallway, with the bridge at one end and the commons at the other. They went to the bridge first, to acquaint themselves with the layout.
They were not long on board before Mariella Flaire arrived to join them. She invited them to take their pick of the empty cabins, of which there were several, and disappeared after saying that she was readyfor departure whenever they were.
It took them very little time to settle in, and by the time Flaire reappeared, they were completing the final checkout on the bridge. Jael was in the number two rigger-station, testing the Burnhardt neural network, while Ar monitored the systems from the external control. ”Does the s.h.i.+p meet with your approval, riggers?” Flaire asked, standing at the rear of the bridge.
”Everything seems in order, Captain,” answered Ar. ”Jael, are we ready?”
Jael was half in and half out of the net. ”Anytime,” she answered, her voice coming out in a dreamy drawl. She withdrew from the net and lifted her head to peer at Flaire. ”Do you have any special ...
requests ... about the route?” she asked, remembering Mogurn and the mountains.
Flaire raised her eyebrows. ”Just get me there safely. Do you have all the information you need?”
Ar responded from the forward end of the bridge. ”We have everything provided by the library, Ma'am.
And I myself have pa.s.sed along this stretch more than once. I antic.i.p.ate no problems.”
Flaire nodded. ”Make ready for the tow, then.” She stepped to the com and called the s.p.a.ceport dispatcher.
Hours later, when the tow released them to the darkness of s.p.a.ce, Jael and Ar were waiting, poised to take the s.h.i.+p down into the currents of the Flux, visible from within the net as a soft layer of clouds beneath them. They grinned at each other across the winking traceries of the net, and when Flaire gave the okay, they reached out together and seized the cottony stuff of the Flux and drew the s.h.i.+p down into it.
The wispy clouds caressed them as the s.h.i.+p sank, and then the Flux turned clear as a gla.s.sy sea. Jael and Ar became swimmers, stroking side by side through the water, dipping their arms in rhythm. After a time Ar dropped back a little, bringing up the rear with a smooth backstroke, while Jael took the lead. They had to cross a few s.h.i.+fting currents before they found one coursing in the desired direction, but from that point on, they made smooth and steady headway toward the distant sh.o.r.e of Vela Oasis.
Time pa.s.sed quickly in the net, as did the leagues, miles, and kilometers of the Flux - all of those units of measure being equally irrelevant to the light-years of normal-s.p.a.ce. They made good progress in their first hours, and in the sessions that followed, and they found that they were indeed well suited to working together. Ar had a deft touch in the net, and a good sense of stability, while Jael excelled in glimpsing changes in the stream and crafting new images to help them move smoothly through the changes. Jael adjusted quickly to sharing the net. If she occasionally missed her solitude, she felt more than compensated by the joys of mutual aid and challenge, of trading and sharing images with another.
The sea became a dancing stream, and they, fish darting in it. Later, the stream of water became a jet of golden oil coursing through a clear-walled pipeline, and they, a pair of bubbles joined at the waist to a larger billowing bubble sailing down the stream of oil.Take care that we don't burst! Ar laughed, as they quivered and stretched in the stream. And she answered, poking and testing at the limits of her bubble,If we do, we'll just make ourselves over! There was no real danger as long as the flow remained stable; the only thing they really had to watch for was a divergence or turbulence in the stream, which could indicate dangerous conditions developing along their course. So far, the way was smooth.
Out of the net, in the s.h.i.+p's commons, they talked of the route ahead and of the future. Jael felt a curious contentment in working with Ar, a kind of happiness she'd not felt in a long time. She was amazed to discover that they were growing steadily closer in friends.h.i.+p, and she wondered, had her life before this been so lonely that it could shock her to sense a true friends.h.i.+p developing? Did she dare trust what washappening? It was a disorienting prospect, growing close to this Clendornan; yet it was easier in a way than it might have been if he'd been human, and therefore more threatening.
Still, for all that they were comfortable together, she felt an awkwardness in discussing certain subjects with him ... such as Highwing. She suspected that Ar simply did not like the thought of dragons. Several times he skillfully deflected their conversation away from the subject, or simply drifted off into a reverie, humming Clendornan chants. It was clear that he did not believe in the reality of her experience, though he soberly respected the effect that herperceived experience could have on her life. Eventually she gave up trying, and as the trip went on, her memory of the dragon realm blurred a little more around the edges, seeming ever less real, even to her. Alone in her cabin, she thought often of Highwing, but her memories had an increasingly dreamlike quality.
One worry she didn't have, and for which she was grateful, was whether her friends.h.i.+p with Ar would turn into something s.e.xual, real or potential. While there was, physically speaking, nothing to prevent intimacy between a human woman and a Clendornan male, the urges didn't seem to arise, at least not as they did between the human s.e.xes. Perhaps the reasons were biochemical, perhaps something else. It was a concern that she was frankly relieved to be free of; she was far from ready for that sort of thing, even with a human male, had there been a suitable candidate around. She was content to spend long hours close to Ar, knowing that the bond growing between them was of the mind and the spirit, rather than of the body.