"Your family seems to have been rather violently against the idea."
Blaize's mobile, ugly face twisted into a sneer. "Wouldn't do for folks in our position, y'know. Not quite the thing. My cousin Jillia is in line to be the next Planetary Governor of Kaza-uri, and my buddy Henequin—m'father's best friend's son," Blaize explained parenthetically, "is already in charge of the Vega branch of Planetary Technical Aid. A son who's in brawn training doesn't quite match up with those stellar accomplishments for after-dinner bragging."
"I wonder if my family feels that way," Nancia said. Was that why Daddy hadn't made time for her graduation?
"Shouldn't think so. They sent you to Laboratory Schools, didn't they?"
"They didn't," Nancia said, "have many options. I would not have survived a normal birth."
"Oh. Well. Anyway," Blaize said carefully, "I don't think your branch of the family is quite as snobbish as ours. And neither one can beat the de Gras-Waldheims for exclusiveness. Polly got to go to the Academy, but he was supposed to turn into a general, not a lowly space jockey; I can't imagine what he's doing on his way to administer a metachip plant on Shemali. Must have been some scandal at the Academy. I thought I knew all the family gossip, but whatever he got into, they hushed it up exceedingly well. You probably have access to the files, though—or—anyway, I bet you could find out if you wanted to."
"I imagine," Nancia said, "they are in need of his technical expertise." She felt no impulse whatever to share the details of Polyon's Academy problems with this gossipy boy. Didn't the High Families train their softperson children in any kind of discretion? First Polyon, using his computer expertise to hack through security checks and find out the other passengers' secrets, and now Blaize, turning his charm on her to the same end.
"You don't approve of gossip, do you?" Blaize guessed. "All right. Have it your way. You will be a suitably discreet Courier Service brainship and a credit to the family, and I'll be a nice little PTA administrator on Angalia and try not to disgrace my side of the family, and we can all drift on in boredom forever."
"Planetary Technical Aid isn't so bad," Nancia told him. "My sister Jinevra is an area administrator, and she's only twenty-nine. You could rise rapidly—"
"From Angalia?" Blaize's eyebrows shot up like red exclamation marks, giving his face a look of comical astonishment. "Dear Cousin Nancia, you really don't pry, do you? If you'd read my file you would know better than to try and stir up my ambitions for Angalia. The sum total of civilization there consists of one PTA office, one corycium mine, and a bunch of humanoid natives with the collective IQ of a zucchini. A small zucchini. It's amazing they even qualify for Planetary Aid; somebody must have filled out the FCF wrong, and whoever later determined that they didn't have ISS forgot to correct the PTA data. The wheels of the bureaucracy grind on and on. . . . So here I go to Angalia, less than the dust beneath old Henequin's chariot wheels."
"You should do well enough," Nancia said. "You've certainly got the jargon of the bureaucracy down pat." She scanned her data files for translations of the initials Blaize had used. PTA was Planetary Technical Aid, of course, and FCF turned out to be a First Contact Form, and ISS—ah. Intelligent Sentient Status. Nancia had learned all the regulations for dealing with alien sentients in Basic Courier Diplomacy and Development 101, but she wasn't used to hearing the abbreviations tossed about so casually. Daddy, when he visited and told her about his work, was always careful to give each bureaucratic office its full name, each official his full title.
It was possible, Nancia thought, involuntarily contrasting Blaize's darting, hummingbird speech patterns with Daddy's measured delivery—it was possible that her father, Javier Perez y de Gras, was just a bit stuffy. No. That was ridiculous. She was getting corrupted by her passengers, straying into non-regulation and non-approved ways of thinking. Heaven knew what indiscretions Blaize would lure her into if they continued this conversation.
"Do you play SPACED OUT?" She filled the three wall-size screens with the displays that had tempted Polyon and Darnell into the game. "It'll have to be solitaire, I'm afraid."
"Why?"
"I can't not know the underlying structure," Nancia apologized. "You see, the game's part of my memory banks now. And I've never learned your softperson trick of selectively turning off awareness." She wasn't about to try, either. But she could, she told Blaize, make the solitaire game a little more challenging by redefining the maze of tunnels and Singularity nodes that connected one part of the SPACED OUT galaxy with another.
"Rules that change as you play?" Blaize hummed in delight. "Great idea. Polly will hate it, too."
That thought seemed to increase his pleasure in the game. And while he happily manipulated a solitary play icon through the traps and surprises set up by the designer, Nancia contemplated the vast loneliness of the stars around them and the distance she must travel before she could make private contact with another shellperson.
CHAPTER THREE
Alpha
When she awoke after the graduation "party," Alpha bint Hezra-Fong made her way to the main cabin and found her traveling companions engaged in one of those silly role-playing games. Medical school and a demanding research program had never given her the time to waste on such frivolities. But there might be plenty of time where she was going. Alpha pushed that thought to the back of her mind. She would find something productive to do; she always did. She might even find a way to continue her research.
For the present, her companions watched the game screens, and Alpha watched them. They were considerably more amusing than the game; especially Blaize and Polyon, stalking one another in an ongoing verbal battle. Blaize was obviously dying to know why someone like Polyon, destined by family and training for a high command post, was being sent out to start his career on a remote planet of no real military importance.
Alpha rather wanted to know the answer to that little puzzle herself. As part of the powerful and high-ranking de Gras-Waldheim clan, Polyon would seem like a good person to cultivate. And in some ways, Alpha thought, it would be a pleasure to make friends with Polyon. He was certainly the most attractive man on this ship, the only one worth her time. But if he'd disgraced himself at the Academy and been disowned by his family, she couldn't afford the risk of getting close to him. Some of that scandal—whatever it could have been—might rub off on her. And she couldn't afford any more blots on her record, not after the way the medical school had overreacted to that trivial business about her research protocols. No, she'd wait and find out a little more about Polyon before she moved on him. And she'd let Blaize Armontillado-Perez y Medoc, a born gadfly if ever there was one, do the finding out.
"Shemali's such an obscure spot," Blaize hinted, "for a brilliant young man on his way up."
Polyon stared into the display of distant mountain peaks for a moment before he answered. Alpha could see a muscle twitching in his jaw. As well as all the muscles everywhere else . . . those Academy undress grays don't leave much to the imagination! Why doesn't he just break the little pest in half? But Polyon retained his control. "Yes, it's nearly as godforsaken as Angalia, isn't it? My brilliant little cousin-on-his-way-up," he added remotely.
"Ah, but we all know I'm the black sheep of the family," Blaize countered, "a modern-day remittance man. You, on the other hand, are supposed to be the pride of the de Gras-Waldheims, the last and finest flower of those entwined family trees, bursting with military potential and—umm—hybrid vigor."
"At least the Academy taught me not to mix my metaphors," Polyon said.
"It must be some super-secret military base," Blaize decided aloud. "Nothing less would suit for a de Gras-Waldheim's first posting. So classified even the droneship doesn't know why you're going there."
Alpha noticed that his eyes flicked towards the central titanium column as though he expected an answer through the ship's speakers. Well, she conceded, it was as likely that the drone would take part in the conversation as that Polyon would tell hi
s cousin anything he didn't want to. Likelier.
She yawned and fiddled with the joyball, rolling the SPACED OUT display from the Mountains of Momentum to Asteroid Hall and back. This conversation was boring. Polyon wasn't going to tell them anything. He wasn't even going to smash his cousin into the wall. No information, no amusement. Alpha was about ready to go back to her cabin and take a nap. There was little enough else to do on this stupid droneship.
"No secret military plans," Polyon said. "No secrets at all, Blaize, sorry to disappoint you. But if it'll shut you up, I'll try to explain what I'm going to do in terms you'll be able to understand. . . . Leaving out the technical terms, let's just say that I'm going to manage the metachip plant attached to the Shemali prison. Governor Lyautey is out of his depth. He knows how to run a prison. He doesn't know anything about metachip manufacturing. And the productivity record shows it. I'm going to set things straight, that's all."
Alpha sighed. The man's discretion was so perfect, she almost believed him; except that Blaize was right, it didn't compute for a de Gras-Waldheim to take a job as a factory manager.
"Ahh, now I understand," Blaize almost purred. "The governor is to take lessons from you in the finer points of chip manufacture, and you're to take lessons from him in the finer points of . . . ahhh . . . torture and degradation of prisoners? Or do I have it wrong? Maybe it's the other way round."
Polyon smiled. "If the governor wants an expert in nagging prisoners to death, I'll advise him to send for you."
"What a pity, though," Blaize prodded. "All that military training going to waste. Seems the family could have arranged something a little better for you. Unless there's something you're not telling us about your Academy record. . . ."
Polyon's perfectly shaped ears turned red and Alpha raised her head, suddenly alert. The flush of rage didn't improve Polyon's looks, but that was all right with her; if anything, his face in repose was a little too perfect. And now he looked ready to kill somebody—or tell something. Alpha mentally applauded. Blaize had finally hit on a nerve!
"And what better position might the family have arranged for you, dear cousin?" Polyon inquired. "Save a little of that pity for yourself. When your posting at Angalia is finished—if you ever do get off that godforsaken planet—you'll have nothing but your savings. Granted, they should be considerable, since there's nothing to spend money on there, but how much can a PTA-17's monthly salary add up to?"
"About as much as a factory supervisor's, I should imagine. Face the facts, Polyon. We've both been screwed over by our respective families. For once you're in the same boat I'm in, regardless of that pretty face and stiff back. I know why I'm here. What I'd dearly like to know is why they did it to you."
Alpha, too. She leaned forward, tensing slightly in anticipation of the answer, but Polyon chose to answer the first part of Blaize's goading speech rather than the second. "Oh, but I've no intention of trying to make it on my savings, dear coz."
"What, then?"
"Metachips," Polyon said meditatively, "are very expensive. Not to mention that they're in short supply."
"Tell me something I don't know," Blaize invited him.
"I plan," said Polyon, "to . . . improve on the current rationing system."
Unnoticed in her corner, Alpha nodded thoughtfully. Polyon had a good point. Metachips were exceedingly scarce and costly, and for good reason. The metachip manufacturing process involved at least three different acids so hazardous to the environment that most planets refused to harbor the plants, despite the unquestioned financial benefits. Shemali, inhospitable, cursed with the perpetual biting north wind that had given the planet its name, with its one land mass dedicated to a maximum-security prison, was the only major metachip manufacturing site in existence; Shemali, where nothing you did could make the environment much worse, and where the workers bought their lives one day at a time by laboring in the metachip plant.
Because who else could you use, in the final analysis, but convicts already under sentence of death? One of the acids involved, when used in the quantities required for manufacturing, released a gas whose effects on human tissue were slow, painful, deadly . . . and so far, irreversible. Alpha was an expert on those effects; her research at Central Med had been devoted to trying various drug therapies to reverse the effects of Ganglicide. She might have had a major paper out of the work if the school's Ethics Committee hadn't got so upset about her testing methods . . . Alpha clamped her lips down on the flare of anger that possessed her. That was all in the past. The present was Polyon and his plan, which he was explaining to Blaize with a wealth of patronizing detail about the adverse effects on the economy of the present rationing system.
"It's ridiculous to have metachips distributed by a committee of old men and do-gooders," he declared. "Sure, the military is entitled to first cut at the chips, but after our applications have been satisfied, the remaining chips ought to go where they'll do the most good."
"I thought that was the object of the rationing system," Blaize remarked. "Companies get Social Utility Marks for their intended use of the metachips, and the chips are distributed in proportion to the SUM. What's wrong with that?"
"Unrealistic," Polyon said promptly. "They're using chips for single-body operations like repairing kidneys or replacing damaged spinal nerves, when the same chips could go into, oh, applications that thousands of people could use at once. Dorg Jesen would pay millions for a handful of metas and a promise of steady supply."
Blaize began to laugh. "Dorg Jesen? The feelieporn king? That's your idea of a SUM?"
"Millions," Polyon repeated himself. "And if you don't believe I can think of a socially useful function for all that cash—"
"That," said Blaize, "I can believe. But just how do you think you'll sneak the feelieporn application past the advisory board?"
"I see no reason why the matter should ever come before the board. QA testing for the metachips is one of the areas Governor Lyautey asked me to supervise. Disposal of the chips that fail QA will presumably also fall within my duties." He looked so smug that Alpha felt the need to puncture his self-satisfaction.
"I wouldn't plan on selling defective chips to Dorg Jesen if I were you," she interrupted Polyon's gloating. "He's been known to rearrange the features of people who interfered with his business." Her shiver wasn't assumed; one of her first tasks in med research had been to diagram the facial injuries on a girl who'd refused Jesen's offer of employment. Alpha had eventually made a complete inventory of the damage, together with holosims of the girl's face before the attack and as she would look after plastifilm had replaced what used to be living flesh.
Eventually.
After she rushed out of the lab theater and threw up in front of the senior surgical advisor.
At the time, she'd thought it would be the most humiliating thing that could ever happen to her in med school.
Remembering, she barely heard Polyon's bland reply that he had no intention of selling defective chips to anybody.
Blaize gave a low, admiring whistle. "Of course. Fiddle the QA parameters one way for Governor Lyautey's reports, the other way for sales, and who knows what happens to the metachips in between? You could make a fortune in five years!"
"I intend to," said Polyon.
He was really much too self-satisfied, especially for a man who'd left the Academy under some kind of a cloud that he was afraid or ashamed to discuss. Alpha decided that it would be doing humanity a favor to wipe that smug smile off Lieutenant de Gras-Waldheim's face. He really shouldn't smirk like that. Spoiled his looks.
"I do hope you'll still be able to enjoy your fortune by then," she cooed sweetly at Polyon. "Better stay out of the way of your convict laborers, though. Nasty accidents are so easy to arrange in a D-class facility, aren't they? But don't let it worry you. Even if you do get a little spot of Ganglicide on your precious skin, I'm sure Governor Lyautey will rush you to Bahati for medical treatment. And you're lucky to have an expert in Gangli
cide therapy right there at the Summerlands clinic."
"You." Polyon nodded stiffly. "That was to be your thesis topic, wasn't it?"
Alpha suppressed a start. How had Polyon known of her research? Oh, well, the High Families were such an inbred group. Probably her aunt Leona had been gossiping over the chai tables. But Polyon wouldn't know much more than the title of her projected paper; the symptoms of Ganglicide exposure were hardly fit material for chai-table gossip. She relaxed and prepared to enjoy her project of wiping that superior smirk off Polyon's face.
"I had some success with chemical treatments for the skin decay," she told him. "Halted the disintegrating process, anyway. I'm afraid we couldn't do much to reverse the effects, though. The skin shreds like paper and turns sort of blue-green. And it spreads very rapidly. If you get a drop of Ganglicide on one finger while you're on Shemali, your arm will look like it's been through a paper shredder by the time the shuttle delivers you to Bahati. Do try to keep it away from your pretty face."
Polyon's handsome features betrayed only slight uneasiness, but there was a knowing look in his eyes. "You—had to interrupt your research rather suddenly, didn't you?"
Alpha silently cursed all interfering, gossiping old relatives and friends. Never mind. "More's the pity," she sighed. "I was just getting into the most interesting cases. You know, when Ganglicide goes into its gaseous form it attacks nerves and brain synapses. Has much the same effects on them that it has on the skin; we dissected a really fascinating case, a senior assembly tech from Shemali, as it happens. The inside of his head looked like a wet blue sponge. Of course, by the time the Ganglicide got that far he was too far gone to know or care what was happening to him. A mercy, really. Not that we'll ever really know how long he felt the pain. Ganglicide goes straight to the pain receptors, you know; we can't block the effects with drugs. And towards the end he was screaming continuously. Like an animal dying under torture." She licked her lips and regarded Polyon. He was standing quite still, two fingers beating a nervous tattoo on the command panel behind him. The dance of his fingertips on the sensitive pressure pads made the SPACED OUT screen on the far side of the room shift back and forth jerkily, displaying alternate images of deep space and of a flaming labyrinth where molten lava menaced the hapless play icons.
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