She only realized that she'd been manipulated when she found herself blurting out her plans for doing some amateur archeological sleuthing on the side, and both the fact that she wanted a bit of archeological glory for herself, and that she expected to eventually come up with something worth a fair number of credits toward her buy-out. She at least kept back the other wish; the one about finding the bug that had bitten her. By now, the three desires were equally strong, for reading of her parents' success had reawakened all the old dreams of following in Pota's footsteps, dealing with Beta had given her more than enough of being someone else's contract servant, and her studies of brainship chronicles had awakened a new fear—plague. And what would happen if the bug that paralyzed her got loose on a planetarywide scale?
As she tried to cover herself, she inadvertently revealed that the plans were a secret held successfully not only from her CenCom supervisors but from everyone she'd ever worked with except Moira.
"It was because I thought that they'd take my determination as something else entirely," she confessed. "I thought they'd take it as a fixation, and a sign of instability."
All through her confession, Alex stayed ominously silent. When she finished, she suddenly realized that she had just put him in a position to blackmail her into taking him. All he had to do was threaten to reveal her fixation, and she'd be decommissioned and put with a Counselor for the next six months.
But instead of saying anything, he began laughing. Howling with laughter, in fact. She waited in confusion for him to settle down and tell her what was going on.
"You didn't look far enough into my records, lovely lady," he said, calming down and wiping his eyes. "Oh, my. Call up my file, why don't you. Not the Academy file; the one with my application for a scholarship in it."
Puzzled, she linked into the CenCom net and accessed Alex's public records. "Look under 'hobbies,'" he suggested.
And there it was. Hobbies and other interests.
Archeology and Xenology.
She looked further, without invitation, to his class records. She soon saw that in lower schools, besides every available history class, he had taken every archeological course he could cram into a school day.
She wished that she had hands so that she could rub her temples; as it was, she had to increase her nutrients a tad, to rid herself of a beginning headache.
"See?" he said. "I wouldn't mind my name on a paper or two myself. Provided, of course, that there aren't any curses attached to our findings! And—well, who couldn't use a pile of credits? I would very much like to retire from the Service with enough credit to buy myself—oh, a small planetoid."
"But—why didn't you apply to the university?" she asked. "Why didn't you go after your degree?"
"Money," he replied succinctly, leaning back in his seat and steepling his fingers over his chest. "Dinero. Cash. Filthy lucre. My family didn't have any—or rather, they had just enough that I didn't qualify for scholarships. Oh, I could have gotten a Bachelor's degree, but those are hardly worth bothering about in archeology. Heck, Hypatia, you know that! You know how long it takes to get one Doctorate, too—four years to a Bachelor's, two to a Master's, and then years and years and years of field work before you have enough material to do an original dissertation. And a working archeologist, one getting to go out on Class One digs or heading Class Two and Three, can't just have one degree, he has to have a double-doc or a quad-doc." He shook his head, sadly. "I've been an armchair hobbyist for as long as I've been a history buff, dear lady, but that was all that I could afford. Books and papers had to suffice for me."
"Then why the Academy?" she asked, sorely puzzled.
"Good question. Has a complicated answer." He licked his lips for a moment, thinking, then continued. "Say I got a Bachelor's in Archeology and History. I could have gotten a bottom-of-the-heap clerking job at the Institute with a Bachelor's—but if I did that, I might as well go clerk anywhere else, too. Clerking jobs are all the same wherever you go, only the jargon changes, never the job. But I could have done that, and gotten a work-study program to get a Master's. Then I might have been able to wangle a research assistant post to someone, but I'd be doing all of the dull stuff. None of the exploration; certainly none of the puzzle-solving. That would be as far as I could go; an RA job takes too much time to study for a Doctorate. I'd have been locked inside the Institute walls, even if my boss went out on digs himself. Because when you need someone to mind the store at home, you don't hire someone extra, you leave your RA behind."
"Oh, I see why you didn't do that," she replied. "But why the Academy?"
"Standards for scholarships to the Academy are—a little different," he told her. "The Scholarship Committees aren't just looking for poor but brilliant people—they're looking for competent people with a particular bent, and if they find someone like that, they do what it takes to get him. And the competition isn't as intense; there are a lot more scholarships available to the Academy than there are to any of the university Archeology and History Departments I could reach. All two of them; I'd have had to go to a local university; I couldn't afford to go off-planet. Space Academy pays your way to Central; university History scholarships don't include a travel allowance. I figured if I couldn't go dig up old bones on faraway worlds, I'd at least see some of those faraway worlds. If I put in for A and E I'd even get to watch some of the experts at work. And while I was at it, I might as well put in for brawn training and see what it got me. Much to my surprise, my personality profile matched what they were looking for, and I actually found myself in brawn training, and once I was out, I asked to be assigned to A and E."
"So, why are you insisting on partnering me?" she asked, deciding that if he had manipulated her, she was going to be blunt with him, and if he couldn't take it, he wasn't cut out to partner her. No matter what he thought. Hmm, maybe frankness could scare him away. . . .
He blinked. "You really don't know? Because you are you," he said. "It's really appallingly simple. You have a sparkling personality. You don't try to flatten your voice and sound like an AI, the way some of your classmates have. You aren't at all afraid to have an opinion. You have a teddy bear walled up in your central cabin like a piece of artwork, but you don't talk about it. That's a mystery, and I love mysteries, especially when they imply something as personable as a teddy bear. When you talk, I can hear you smiling, frowning, whatever. You're a shellperson, Hypatia, with the emphasis on person. I like you. I had hoped that you would like me. I figured we could keep each other entertained for a long, long time."
Well, he'd out-blunted her, and that was a fact. And—startled her. She was surprised, not a little flattered, and getting to think that Alex might not be a bad choice as a brawn after all. "Well, I like you," she replied hesitantly, "but . . ."
"But what?" he asked, boldly. "What is it?"
"I don't like being manipulated," she replied. "And you've been doing just that: manipulating me, or trying."
He made a face. "Guilty as charged. Part of it is just something I do without thinking about it. I come from a low-middle-class neighborhood. Where I come from, you either charm your way out of something or fight your way out of it, and I prefer the former. I'll try not to do it again."
"That's not all," she warned. "I've got—certain plans—that might get in the way, if you don't help me." She paused for effect. "It's about what I want to hunt down. The homeworld of the Salomon-Kildaire Entities."
"The EsKays?" he replied, sitting up, ramrod-straight. "Oh, my—if this weren't real life I'd think you were telepathic or something! The EsKays are my favorite archeological mystery! I'm dying to find out why they'd set up shop, then vanish! And if we could find the homeworld—Hypatia, we'd be holo-stars! Stellar achievers!"
Her thoughts milled about for a moment. This was very strange. Very strange indeed.
"I assume that part of our time Out would be spent checking things out at the EsKay sites?" he said, his eyes warming. "Looking for things the archeologists
may not find? Looking for more potential sites?"
"Something like that," she told him. "That's why I need your cooperation. Sometimes I'm going to need a mobile partner on this one."
He nodded, knowingly. "Lovely lady, you are looking at him," he replied. "And only too happy to. If there's one thing I'm a sucker for, it's a quest. And this is even better, a quest at the service of a lady!"
"A quest?" she chuckled a little. "What, do you want us to swear to find the Holy Grail now?"
"Why not?" he said lightly. "Here—I'll start." He stood up, faced not her column but Ted E. Bear in his illuminated case, and held his hand as if he were taking the Space Service Oath. "I, Alexander Joli-Chanteu, do solemnly swear that I shall join brainship Hypatia One-Oh-Three-Three in a continuing and ongoing search for the homeworld of the Salomon-Kildaire Entities. I swear that this will be a joint project for as long as we have a joint career. And I swear that I shall give her all the support and friendship she needs in this search, so help me. So let it be witnessed and sealed by yon bear."
Tia would have giggled, except that he looked so very solemn.
"All right," he said, when he sat down again. "What about you?"
What about her? She had virtually accepted him as her brawn, hadn't she? And hadn't he sworn himself into her service, like some kind of medieval knight?
"All right," she replied. "I, Hypatia One-Oh-Three-Three, do solemnly swear to take Alexander Joli-Chanteu into my service, to share with him my search for the EsKay homeworld, and to share with him those rewards both material and immaterial that come our way in this search. I pledge to keep him as my brawn unless we both agree mutually to sever the contract. I swear it by—by Theodore Edward Bear."
He grinned, so wide and infectiously, that she wished she could return it. "I guess we're a team, then," she said.
"Then here—" he lifted an invisible glass "—is to our joint career. May it be as long and fruitful as the Cades'."
He pretended to drink, then to smash the invisible glass in an invisible fireplace, little guessing that Tia's silence was due entirely to frozen shock.
The Cades? How could he—
But before she vocalized anything, she suddenly realized that he could not possibly have known who and what she really was.
The literature on the Cades would never have mentioned their paralyzed daughter, nor the tragedy that caused her paralysis. That simply wasn't done in academic circles, a world in which only facts and speculations existed, and not sordid details of private lives. The Cades weren't stellar personalities, the kind people made docudramas out of. There was no way he could have known about Hypatia Cade.
And once someone went into the shellperson program, their last name was buried in a web of eyes-only and fail-safes, to ensure that their background remained private. It was better that way, easier to adjust to being shelled. The unscrupulous supervisor could take advantage of a shellperson's background for manipulation, and there were other problems as well. Brainships were, as Professor Brogen had pointed out, valuable commodities. So were their cargoes. The ugly possibilities of using familial hostages or family pressures against a brainship were very real. Or using family ties to lure a ship into ambush. . . .
But there was always the option for the shellperson to tell trusted friends about who they were. Trusted friends—and brawns.
She hesitated for a moment, as he saluted Ted. Should she tell him about herself and avoid a painful gaffe in the future?
No. No, I have to learn to live with it, if I'm going to keep chasing the EsKays. If he doesn't say anything, someone else will. Mum and Dad may have soured on the EsKay project because of me, but their names are still linked with it. And besides—it doesn't matter. The EsKays are mine, now. And I'm not a Cade anymore, even if I do find the homeworld. I won't be listed in the literature as Hypatia Cade, but as Hypatia One-Oh-Three-Three. A brainship. Part of the AH team—
She realized what their team designation looked like. "Do you realize that together our initials are—"
"'Ah'?" he said, pronouncing it like the word. "Actually, I did, right off. I thought it was a good omen. Not quite 'eureka,' but close enough!"
"Hmm," she replied. "It sounds like something a professor says when he thinks you're full of lint but he can't come up with a refutation!"
"You have no romance in your soul," he chided mockingly. "And speaking of romance, what time is it?"
"Four thirty-two and twenty-seven point five nine seconds," she replied instantly. "In the morning, of course."
"Egads," he said, and shuddered. "Oh-dark-hundred. Let this be the measure of my devotion, my lady. I, who never see the sun rise if I can help it, actually got up at four in the morning to talk to you."
"Devotion, indeed," she replied with a laugh. "All right, Alex—I give in. You are hereby officially my brawn. I'm Tia, by the way, not Hypatia, not to you. But you'd better sneak back to your dormitory and pretend to be surprised when they tell you I picked you, or we'll both be in trouble."
"Your wish, dearest Tia, is my command," he said, rising and bowing. "Hopefully I can get past the gate-guard going out as easily as I got past going in."
"Don't get caught," she warned him. "I can't bail you out, not officially, and not yet. Right now, as my supervisor told me so succinctly, I am an expensive drain on Institute finances."
He saluted her column and trotted down the stair, ignoring the lift once again.
Well, at least he'll keep in shape.
She watched him as long as she could, but other ships and equipment intervened. It occurred to her then that she could listen in on the spaceport security net for bulletins about an intruder—
She opened the channel, but after a half an hour passed, and she heard nothing, she concluded that he must have made it back safely.
The central cabin seemed very lonely without him. Unlike any of the others—except, perhaps, Chria Chance—he had filled the entire cabin with the sheer force of his personality.
He was certainly lively enough.
She waited until oh-six-hundred, and then opened her line to CenCom. There was a new operator on, one who seemed not at all curious about her or her doings; seemed, in fact, as impersonal as an AI. He brought up Beta's office without so much as a single comment.
As she halfway expected, Beta was present. And the very first words out of the woman's mouth were, "Well? Have you picked a brawn, or am I going to have to trot the rest of the Academy past you?"
Hypatia stopped herself from snapping only by an effort. "I made an all-night effort at considering the twelve candidates you presented, Supervisor," she said sharply. "I went to the considerable trouble of accessing records as far back as lower schools."
Only a little fib, she told herself. I did check Alex, after all.
"And?" Beta replied, not at all impressed.
"I have selected Alexander Joli-Chanteu. He can come aboard at any time. I completed all my test-flight sequences yesterday, and I can be ready to lift as soon as CenCom gives me clearance and you log my itinerary." There, she thought, smugly. One in your eye, Madame Supervisor. I'll wager you never thought I'd be that efficient.
"Very good, AH-One-Oh-Three-Three," Beta replied, showing no signs of being impressed at all. "I wouldn't have logged Alexander as brawn if I had been in your shell, though. He isn't as . . . professional as I would like. And his record is rather erratic."
"So are the records of most genius-class intellects, Supervisor," Tia retorted, feeling moved to defend her brawn. "As I am sure you are aware." And you aren't in my shell, lady, she thought, with resentment at Beta's superior tone smoldering in her, until she altered the chemical feed to damp it. I will make my own decisions, and I will thank you to keep that firmly in mind.
"So they say, AH-One-Oh-Three-Three," Beta replied impersonally. "I'll convey your selection to the Academy and have CenCom log in your flight plan and advise you when to be ready to lift immediately."
With that, she logged
off. But before Tia could feel slighted or annoyed with her, the CenCom operator came back on.
"AH-One-Oh-Three-Three—congratulations!" he said, his formerly impersonal voice warming with friendliness. "I just wanted you to know before we got all tangled up in official things that the operators here all think you picked a fine brawn. Me, especially."
Tia was dumbfounded. "Why—thank you," she managed. "But why—"
The operator chuckled. "Oh, we handle all the cadets' training-flights. Some of them are real pains in the orifice—but Alex always has a good word and he never gripes when we have to put him in a holding pattern. And—well, that Donning character tried to get me in trouble over a near-miss when he ignored what I told him and came in anyway. Alex was in the pattern behind him—he saw and heard it all. He didn't have to log a report in my defense, but he did, and it kept me from getting demoted."
"Oh," Tia replied. Now, that was interesting. Witnesses to near misses weren't required to come forward with logs of the incident—and in fact, no one would have thought badly of Alex if he hadn't. His action might even have earned him some trouble with Donning. . . .
"Anyway, congratulations again. You won't regret your choice," the operator said. "And—stand by for compressed data transmission—"
As her orders and flight-plan came over the comlink, Tia felt oddly pleased and justified. Beta did not like her choice of brawns. The CenCom operators did.
Good recommendations, both.
She began her pre-flight check with rising spirits, and it seemed to her that even Ted was smiling. Just a little.
All right Universe, brace yourself. Here we come!
CHAPTER FOUR
"All right, Tia-my-love, explain what's going on here, in words of one syllable," Alex said plaintively, when Tia got finished with tracing the maze of orders and counter-orders that had interrupted their routine round of deliveries to tiny two- to four-person Exploratory digs. "Who's on first?"
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