Part 28 (1/2)
”It - may not be as complete as you expect,” Nan- da said. ”I have some memory gaps, you know.”
”Yes, I know. But having you there in person - well, via contact b.u.t.ton, I suppose - wouldn't make any difference to that, would it? If something's been lost from your memory banks, it won't come back under cross-examination.”
That was true enough, Nancia supposed; and if the damage to her memory banks were the only cause of gaps in the recording, there'd be no reason at all for her to undergo cross-examination. The subject was not one she wished to discuss in any detail. She said good-bye to Forister, tried to control the twinge of loneliness she felt when the new CS s.h.i.+p took off, and went back to her observations of the stars of Vega sub- s.p.a.ce. Stars were restful; bright and calm, in unchanging patterns as familiar to her as-as - Nancia discovered that she could no longer ”remember” the names of the constellations as they appeared in Vega subs.p.a.ce. She had never spent long enough in this subs.p.a.ce to establish the look of the sky in her own human memory; and the navigational maps that she relied on had been erased. So had her tables of Singularity points and decomposition algo- rithms, her Capellan music recordings....
”Do you know, I'm sorry I used to laugh at softper- sons,” she said thoughtfully to Simeon while the techs309.
buzzed about her, removing the melted blobs that had been hyperchips, restoring connections and sensors, building in new blank memory banks to be loaded with whatever information she requested. ”I never realized how crippled they are, having to rely on no more skills and information than they can store in an organic brain.”
”It's not nice to laugh at the handicapped,” Simeon agreed gravely. ”I trust this has been a learning ex- perience for you, young FN. Would you like me to help you prepare a list of data requests for your new memories?”
”Yes, please,” Nancia said, ”and” - this she did remember, the frustration of listening to the medical jargon of the techs at Summerlands working on Caleb - ”do you think I can afford a cla.s.sical education?
Latin and Greek vocabularies and syntax?”
”I'll indent for the Loeb Cla.s.sical Hedron,” Simeon said. ”That has twenty-six Old Earth languages plus all the major literature.”
”And - ” she didn't want to go too far into debt-”a medical set? Pharmacology, Internals, and Surgical?”
”Should be standard equipment on any s.h.i.+p gets into as much trouble as you do,” Simeon agreed.
”Yes, but can I afford it? I've lost some accounting data; I don't know how my credit stands with Courier Service - ”
Simeon came as near to a laugh as Nancia had ever heard from him. ”FN, trust me, the bonus for this last job, plus the hazardous service pay, will cover any frills you want to request and go a long way towards paying off your debt to Lab Schools. Pull off a couple more like this and you'll be a paid-off sh.e.l.l, your own woman. In fact,” he added thoughtfully, ”there's no reason why you should pay for the cla.s.sical and medi- cal hedra. I'll just slip those in as pan of the replacement list, which is charged to Central - ”
”No,” Nancia said firmly. ”That's how it starts.”
310.
fc? Margaret Sail ”How what starts?**
”You know. Darnell. Polyon. Everything.”
”Oh. Well, I sec what you mean, but it is a gray area, you know...”
”Not,” Nancia said, ”for House Perez y de Gras. I'D buy the extra skills hedra myself, out of my bonus.
From the figures you just beamed up, I'll have more than enough to pay honestly for those 'frills' and any other expenses I may incur during this stay.”
But that was before she discovered the item that would strain her budget to its limits.
Nancia's repairs were nearly finished when Caleb, now walking without a stick and looking even more muscular than before, landed at Vega Base and re- quested permission to come aboard. Nancia exclaimed in delight at the bronzed, fit young man she saw step- ping out of the airlock.
”My goodness, Caleb, you look as if you'd never been ill a day in your life.”
”There wasn't much to do at Summerlands,** Caleb said dismissively. ”It's a sin to waste time; I worked out in the physical therapy rooms most of die time while they were fussing over final tests and declaring me fit for duty again. What's our next a.s.signment?**
”Our?”
”You didn't think I'd desert you? You made some er- rors of judgment while I was away, Nancia, but nothing that can't be repaired. In fact,” Caleb added, looking around the gleaming interior from which all traces of OG s.h.i.+pping's mauve and puce had finally been removed, ”it looks as if the repairs are just about finished.”
”They are, but Caleb, I - I'm partnered with Forister now,” Nancia said. She felt guilty as she said the words; suppose Caleb felt that she was rejecting him? But it was the simple truth. Her call sign was FN- 935 now, not CN.311.
”Temporary a.s.signment,” Caleb brushed that aside.
”Now I've been p.r.o.nounced fit again, Forister can go back into comfortable retirement. No need for him to continue straining himself in tasks he's really not up to. Take this last debacle. You're not to blame, Nancia, being young and inexperienced, but you must see that it was handled all wrong. If...”
While Caleb blithely explained the mistakes Forister had made and how he, with the benefit of hindsight, could have done so much better, Nancia attempted to control some new and unfamiliar sensations.
Simeon, she tightbeamed to the managing brain, is there a malfunction in my repaired circuits ? My sensors show a temperature rise and high conductivity, and I'm picking up a strange buzzing m some of the audio circuits.
The Vega manager's reply was a few seconds delayed. Fascinating, he beamed back while Caleb con- tinued his speech. Yoursynaptic connectors are picking up direct emotional signals. What an unusual coupling - that's not supposed to happen. You must have done something to your connections while you were fighting the hyperchip attack.
What are you talking about ? Is it dangerous ? Fix it! Nan- cia demanded.
Simeon transmitted a chuckle over the audio circuit, stopping Caleb in mid-peroration.
”What was that? Is Central trying to contact us?”
”No, just a - a message from one of the repair techs,” Nancia improvised. ”You were saying?”
”Well, try not to let it happen again,” Caleb said ir- ritably. ”We've got to get our future relations.h.i.+p straight, Nancia; surely that's more important than some last-minute twiddling with your repairs? Now listen. I don't want you to feel guilty over what's past.”
”Why should I?” Nancia asked, startled. ”Oh, be- cause I didn't report the conversations I heard on my rst voyage, and stop those young criminals before ley got properly started? Well, I do feel guilty. That 312.
Anne McCaffrgy Gf was a bad mistake.” But one Caleb had encouraged her to make.
”I don't mean that at all!” Caleb said. ”You acted with perfect propriety in keeping those conversations private. I mean die way you've been rocketing around the Nyota system, bearing false witness, pretending to be something you're not, encouraging breaches of PTA regulations on Angalia, getting involved in all sorts of violence and mixing with very questionable people indeed - ”
Simeon, I know Tm overheating. Can't you send a tech out to fix my circuits?
There's nothing to fix, Nancia, but Lab Schools will want to study just how you achieved it. Briefly, you've created a mind- body feedback hop between your cortex and the s.h.i.+p-one that carries emotional as well as intellectual and motor impulses.
You mean - ?
You're a little more like a softperson than the rest of us, Nan- da - or, you might say, a little more human. You're angry, my dear, and your connections are showing it. Flushed, ears buzz- ing, breathing faster, higher fuel consumption -yes, Td say you're in a roaring snit. And not without cause. You've out- grown that righteous little snip, Nancia. When are you going to shut him up and kick him off you?
” - but you were misled, and I myself bear some of the fault, having allowed you to persuade me against my better judgment into the first false step on the downward path of deception,” Caleb finished his sen- tence without being aware of the split-second exchange between Nancia and Simeon. ”Now that you've seen what such things can lead to, I'm sure you'll repent of your errors. And I want you to know that I freely and completely forgive you. We'll never speak of this again-**
”You're darned right, we won't!” Nancia interrupted.
”Go find yourself a s.h.i.+p to match your morals, Caleb!”
”What do you mean?”313.
To calm herself down, Nancia took a moment to convert her entire Vega subs.p.a.ce map to Old Earth linear measurements and back. By multiple precision arithmetic routines. In surface-level code. She was on the verge of hurting Caleb's feelings. And she wasn't quite angry enough to do that. The inexperienced young brains.h.i.+p who'd teamed with Caleb five years ago would have accepted his self-righteous lecture as if he were laying down Courier Service regulations. It wasn't Caleb's fault, or her fault either, that she'd out- grown his narrow black-and-white view of the world.
Forister had taught her the value of shades of gray and die duty of perceiving them. And if now she felt more truly partnered with that spare, sardonic, aging brawn than with the young man who'd shared her first ad- ventures - well, there was no reason Caleb should suffer unnecessarily on that account.
Her overheating circuits cooled down and the buzz- ing in her ears stopped as she calmed herself with tranquil, fixed equations.