Captain Serrano 2 - Sporting Chance

by Moon, Elizabeth

  Heris had no intention of getting off into that blind alley. Amalie Yrilan's excuses were no longer anyone's problem. "Sirkin, we both know you're capable of better. You were doing extremely well up until we left Rockhouse Major. You must have some idea what's gone wrong. Is someone . . . bothering you?" She was sure she could trust her former crew not to harass a young civilian, but it was only fair to ask. Skoterin, the newest? She'd have expected one of the others to notice and straighten out the offender, or tell her. No, more likely one of the clones, assuming a royal right to any pretty face and body. She wouldn't put it past them to bring drugs aboard, either.

  "No, ma'am. Nobody's bothered me. I know I . . . still miss Amalie, but I honestly don't think it's that. It's justI do something, or think I do something, and then later it's not done. I don't understand it. Maybe I'm going crazy." She looked up with an expression Heris had seen too many times on youngsters who had somehow gotten out of their depth and hoped an elder had a magic solution. "Going crazy" had been a favorite hypothesis in one ship, because there were medicines for going crazy. Simple inattention and laziness had no cure.

  "I don't think you're going crazy," Heris said. She tried to sound both calm and firm. "But I do think you can pull yourself togetherand you must. Tell you what. Let's let another bridge officer sign off on your log entries for a few days. If those entries disappear, we'll know it's not your fault . . . and you'll have a witness to having made them. How's that?" It was an insult, but Sirkin took the suggestion as gratefully as if it had been praise. "Nowtake the rest of this shift offwe've no jump points coming upand put yourself to bed. You look exhausted."

  "Yes, ma'am."

  As Heris expected, Sirkin's log entries didn't disappear when someone else countersigned them. So . . . logically . . . Sirkin had never made the earlier entries. It wasn't a computer glitch; it was the far more common human error. Sirkin seemed to be making fewer of them now, in all categoriesanother data point on the plot of carelessness. Her appearance improved; she looked almost normal, if not the bright-eyed girl she had been. Oblo and Issi reported that she seemed alert, careful, everything she should be.

  Just to be sure, Heris asked about conflicts with the crew; as she'd expected, they all insisted they liked the girl. None of them reported conflict with anyone else. And a discreet surveillance indicated that she wasn't sneaking off to one of the clones (or any of them to her) when she was off-duty.

  Yet . . . what had made Sirkin suddenly careless? Even in the aftermath of Amalie's death, she had done tedious jobs with her former precision. Why now? Heris worried, unsatisfied. She sensed something wrong and promised herself to pursue it once the clones had been delivered safely for medical attention.

  One morning Cecelia lay in her bed and did her best to hate herself to death. She was too old to rage at simple unfairness, but the unfairness of her situation went beyond anything she could accept. When Brun came to dress her and take her to breakfast, she did not respond to the usual morning sallies. The smell of hot bread and sage honey roused no response. She wasn't hungry, and she wouldn't eat. After the necessary rituals of personal care, she waited for her first workout, numb and passive.

  "We've got someone new," Dr. Czerda said. Czerda had begun to sound increasingly apologetic; it grated on Cecelia. "A specialist who might help. We had to wait, because she's so well-knownjust the person they might be watching."

  "Hi," a woman's voice said. "I'm Carly, your new therapist." Another new therapist. Cecelia needed that like she needed a fluorescent bathing suit. She was glad she couldn't say what first came to mind: such a string of obscenity would alienate all of them. "You're very angry," Carly said, in a voice that offered neither blame nor apology. "Did you know you could show that without words?"

  Cecelia did not bother to twitch her answer. It was a lucky guess, that was all, or the infuriating certainty that she was in a predicted stage. They couldn't tell; they'd been nagging her because she didn't have control of her facial muscles, so it couldn't be the scowl she would like to have worn.

  A warm hand lay on her arm; it radiated comfort. "Here," Carly said. "Anger tenses certain muscle groups, and fear tenses different ones. You're tense in all the anger groups. I don't think the others saw that, because of the overall weakness. Does it make you even more angry that I know you're angry?"

  Cecelia thought about it, drawn into the intellectual puzzle despite herself. If it was an observation of her, of her real self, she didn't mind. It was being put into a category that made her want to scream.

  "You're not as angry now," Carly said. Her hand moved slowly along Cecelia's arm. "Perhaps because I paid real attention to you, and not a theory?" Her voice, almost as warm as her hand, conveyed honest curiosity, real interest.

  Cecelia could feel herself calming, the prickly rage receding.

  "You've had good therapists, but they're young," Carly said. "And the enthusiasms of younglings can drive anyone mature to tears or screams. Besides, they've worked you too hard. I think you're tired, more than they've believed. Would you like to sleep?"

  Cecelia twitched yes, and then shrugged both shoulders.

  "You would, but what's the use? Or, you would but then this session is wasted?" Carly waited. Cecelia wondered how she was supposed to answer that with a yes or no, and in the silencea peaceful, accepting silencewondered if she could move anything else enough to communicate. She had clamped onto a horse's mane, first with her right hand, and then with both. If the first alternative was one hand, the second could be both. She tried to visualize her hands moving, and felt the fabric under her fingers slide across her fingertips.

  "Both hands," Carly said, with approval. "That would be the second choice, I expect. Can you confirm with your shoulder?"

  Yes.

  "Then I would say this session is not a waste, even if you sleep the rest of it. You're tense, and angry, and very tired. I'm going to make you comfortable."

  Carly's warm hands, steady and firm, kneaded sore muscles and ligaments. Not the massages that Cecelia remembered, but something deeper and more serious. Soon she was drifting, not quite in contact with her aging body, but not in the sensory limbo of the drugs. She felt warm, contented, relaxed, and very sleepy.

  When she woke, she felt completely adrift. Someone's hands steadied her back; she was leaning againstover?something.

  "It's all right," Carly said. "You slept well, and now you're resting on a large padded ball. If your arms feel funny, it's because they're hanging free, not at your sides."

  It felt worse than funny; it felt ridiculous. Yet it also felt good, and she was rested and comfortable.

  "Can you wiggle your hands again?" Carly asked. Something about her voice, her mature, calm voice, maintained the relaxation. Cecelia tried. With her arms resting against the curve of the ball, almost dangling, she could move her fingers. She could feel them shift across the fabric one by one. "Excellent," Carly said. "Some of the things they worried about aren't so. You don't have real spasticity in your fingers; the weakness and the tension in your arms have made it seem so. In this position, when you're rested, you might even tap a keyboard."

  A keyboard. A keyboard meant letters, meant words, meant language, meantshe had been told thisa speech synthesizer. Real communication, not just twitches and jerks. She wanted to cry and laugh at once; she felt her shoulders seize, cramping. Carly rubbed the cramps out.

  "Right now, the biochemical responses of your limbic system are working against you. Like anyone else, you'll do best when you're relaxed and happy. That's my job."

  Why hadn't the others thought of this? Cecelia felt the difference in Carly's hands, as they responded to her muscles rather than trying to overpower them. Her arms twitched, trembled, then finally hung relaxed and heavy. Comfortable. It had been so long since she'd been really comfortable.

  "It's been known for a very long time," Carly said. "But it's tricky to do, and a lot of people don't think it's important. If a regen tank will work, if the r
ehab is expected to be short, they say why bother? I think it's always worth it, for the patient's comfort if nothing else. And in cases like this, it's essential."

  Cecelia felt mildly alert, rested, ready to try again. That afternoon, the relentless work with weights seemed less impossible. She was sweating, gasping, sorebut it made sense again. Afterwards, Carly gave her another massage, easing the pains of the exercises, and she slept well that night, waking rested and eager to go on.

  Day by day, Carly suggested modifications to the various therapistsa tactile guide that let her get a bit of food to her own mouth, a communication system that used every movement she could make to signal meaning. After that came a communication board, with tactile clues for its segments; Carly promised that work on that would give her the strength and precision to use a real keyboard later. Cecelia began to believe again that she could make it out of this mess, that she would not be a helpless blind victim forever. Now her anger rose from impatience, not despair; she wanted her life back, and she wanted it now.

  The Guerni Republic traded widely with a dozen different political entities. On one side, the Compassionate Hand and the Familias Regnant beyond. On the other, Aethar's World and its allies (a confederation so loose it refused the name). On yet another, some solo worlds so scattered that political union had so far been impractical. Like Italy's central protrusion into the Mediterranean on old Earth (back when that body of water was known as Mare Nostrum), the Guerni Republic enjoyed a location both handy for trade and easy to defend.

  Astrophysicists had argued the unlikelihood of six stars of the right type, with assorted habitable planets, arriving at such a configuration by chance, but the unanswerable counterargument was that everythingeven the taste of chocolatewas inherently unlikely, difficult as it may be to imagine a universe without chocolate in it. The Guernesi preferred to believe their situation had been created for them by a beneficent deity, and shrugged off contrary theories as the envy of those God chose not to favor. In case that envy went further than bad-mannered carping, the Guernesi maintained an alert and quietly competent military, as the Compassionate Hand had found. As practical in its way as the Guerni Republic, the Benignity declared the Guernesi off-limits to Compassionate Hand activityat least as long as delicate probes of the defenses showed them to be still alert and effective.

  As a result of their location and the resulting trade, the Guernesi had developed efficient and relatively painless entrance protocols. But efficient, painless, and swift did not mean careless.

  "While it's no concern of ours, are you aware that your broadcast ID and your ship do not agree?" asked the bright-faced young woman in blue.

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "According to our database, the Better Luck was scrapped over in Jim-dandy eight years ago. I know the Familias records aren't kept that long, but if you bought this ship as the Better Luck we could provide the data to sustain a claim of fraud." For a price, of course. The Guernesi, polite and willing to help, did nothing for nothing.

  "Uh . . . I don't think that will be necessary." Heris had trouble not looking at Oblo. He would be embarrassed.

  "On the other hand, if you reprogrammed the beacon, your tech did an excellent jobeven got the warble in the 92 band exactly right. We have people who would pay a bonus for that kind of work, if that individual is here and wants to immigrate" Another thing about the Guernesi, they were always looking for a profit.

  "Now, I notice you have major ship weapons aboard . . ." And how had they figured that out? With the weapons locked down, no scan should have detected them. "Since you've come in past Compassionate Hand space, I'm afraid we'll have to visually inspect and seal them . . . I don't want to insult you, but the Benignity tries our borders at intervals."

  "How!" Oblo couldn't contain himself. "Your scans areare they for sale?"

  The young woman dimpled at him. "Of course, sir. I can give your captain a list of suppliers certified by the government. We have no restrictions on the foreign purchase of military-grade materials."

  "Mr. Ginese will accompany you on your inspection of the weapons," Heris said. "What about small arms?"

  "May not be taken off the ship; the penalty is death, and destruction of the ship that brought you." That was clear enough. "If you want to shoot yourselves aboard your own ship, that's your business." She spoke into a communicator hooked to her uniform collar; the language was unfamiliar. "I'm just asking our weapons inspection team to step aboard . . . if your Mr. Ginese will meet them at the access hatch?" Of course. Heris was already impressed. She had never been hereR.S.S. vessels visited only on ambassadorial dutyand the rumors she'd heard didn't begin to match the reality.

  "You do not have to state your business here," the young woman went on, "but if you do, it would be my pleasure to advise you on the easiest way to accomplish your purposes."

  "Medical technology," Heris said. "I understand that you have superb research and clinical facilities"

  "Yescan you mention a specialty?"

  "Neurology, specifically the treatment of neurochemically induced cognitive dysfunction." That had been in the papers the king had given her.

  "Ah, yes." The inspector spoke into her collar mic again, and waited a moment. "According to the current listings, I'd recommend Music"

  "Music?" Heris knew she must have looked and sounded as confused as she felt. The younger woman smiled, but not in mockery.

  "Sorry, Captain. It's this translator. All the planets of Guerni's fifth star are named for the artes liberales: music, mathematics, history, and so on. Music is the planet with the largest medical complex devoted to neurology. From here, it's a very short jump, and about two weeks on insystem drivewe do ask, by the way, that you do not jump except at the designated jump points: we have a lot of traffic. By the time you arrive, Music Station will have a list of contacts for you. Do you wish to append any patient data at this time?"

  "No," said Heris, feeling slightly overwhelmed. "No, thank you."

  "Our pleasure. As soon as my team reports your weapons sealed, you're free to go. By the way, while I'm sure you wouldn't think of doing any such thing, I should warn you that unsealing your weapons will be a cause for retaliation, even should you manage to frustrate the automatic detonators on the seals which are designed to blow a ship of the size that usually carries these weapons. Good day!"

  Heris had worried about getting three identical young men named Smith through the Customs Inspection at Music Station. She had imagined every possible complication, but when she brought up the problem, all three laughed.

  "We're used to this," Gerald A. said. "If we don't wear the same clothes, or stand together, or go through the same intake booth too close together, no one will notice. All the machines care about is whether our physical features match our formal ID. And of course they do, from blood type and retinal scan to DNA analysis."

  "We can do costuming," Gerald B. said. "But it's not really necessary here." Heris wondered. She still didn't trust their judgment; she still suspected that one of them actually was the prince, concealed by a shell-game with the nametags. But when they showed up at her office, without the nametags and in different outfits, she had to admit they no longer looked so identical. One wore a scruffy set of spacer coveralls he must have gotten from a crew member; he slouched against the wall looking sullen and grubby. Another displayed himself with the peacock air of a young man of fashion, and the third had the earnest, slightly harried look of a businessman late for a conference. They looked different enough, but how lax were the Guernesi?

  Heris continued to worry until she was through Customs herself, with her royal letters to the physicians, and found the three Smiths grinning at her from the shuttle waiting lounge.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Carly's influence on the treatment team extended into the stable as well. Maris Magerston had been Cecelia's hippotherapist from the beginning, when she had been slung over the horse's back like a stuffed doll . . . she knew that wasn't a fai
r description, but that's what it had felt like to her. Although Maris had patiently explained why she was sprawled on a broad pad, facing backwards, she still hated it. In her mind she had composed one furious argument after another, shutting out Maris's description of this and that muscle group doing important things. She didn't want to be this way, an inert load on the horse's back; she felt ridiculous, ugly, flabby, useless, old. She wanted to ride, and that meant sitting up and facing forward.

  She arrived one day for her session to find an argument going on between Carly and Maris; Brun, pushing her hoverchair, guided it into the tackroom out of sight and let her listen. Maris sounded angry and defensive; Carly, as usual, sounded calm and cheerful, as she said she thought Cecelia was ready to ride properly.

  "We start all our clients that way," Maris said. "I've read those articles, thank you" Carly must have handed her something. "We're not quite as ignorant out here as you seem to think. But it's dangerous to rush clients . . . and she's over eighty . . ."

  Carly took her up on the oblique attack. "Are you upset that I've been called in to supervise?"

  "Oh, no!" Definite bitterness; Cecelia could imagine Maris's expression. "We're not bitter. We're just local therapists on a backwoods planet, all so grateful for a chance to learn from the great Dr. Callum-Wolff."

  "You sound pretty upset to me . . . I probably would be, too. You've been doing a good job for a lot of people all your career here; you do what you've been taught, and people get better . . . and I come along telling you to change. Is that about it?" Carly's voice held no anger and no defensiveness.

  "Well . . ." Maris sounded much calmer. Then she actually chuckled. "Actually, I have your training cubes, up through three years ago. I'd have come to your presentations, if you'd ever come here before." A long pause. "The thing is . . . Lady Cecelia's really special on this planet, to a lot of people. And we were all trained as strict structuralists, Spinvirians. 'When you know the electrochemical scan of a nerve, you know what it can do.' Period. If I let her get hurtespecially doing something new"