by Brian Daley
Alacrity and Heart had a last kiss—a thousand wouldn't have been enough—and he and Floyt boarded the gig, Alacrity carrying his warbag and umbrella. He looked into the Nonpareil's eyes, and she into his, until the hatch closed completely.
* * * *
Floyt let out a long yawn as Alacrity cast loose from the White Ship. Alacrity glanced aside at him. "You tired, too? What's your excuse?"
Floyt stretched, joints cracking. "With all those data terminals and info files? Guess."
"So you've been accessing. What for?"
"Well, there's all that Heavyset/Precursor stuff, and more Precursor data than at any other source: field reports, archeological tapes, military intel files—"
Floyt held up his new proteus. "All the really unique material is now duplicated in here."
Alacrity's brows flickered. "Go back, now; what do we care about Precursors? No more White Ship, at least not for me, remember?"
Floyt looked distinctly uncomfortable. "Yes, well—you know, I've been thinking, and the mere fact that you aren't Master of the White Ship doesn't mean that you can't unlock Precursor secrets. If you care to. Look here, you know more about them firsthand than perhaps anyone. Certainly it looks as though we're going to be doing a good deal of moving about for some time to come.
"Who's to say the White Ship is necessarily the key to it all? Who's to say the answers couldn't come from a couple of chaps like us, who get around a lot even if we do tend to travel bilgeclass? If we were diligent and perhaps a spot of luck came our way from time to time, as it's been known to?"
Alacrity had the gig moving at very low speed. "Hobart, just what is it you're getting at, here, please?"
Floyt gazed back through the cockpit dome at the White Ship. "I suppose you could say I have my own Grail now. Alacrity, remember in Hecate's Precursor lair? That genealogy, that incredible family tree of humankind? Linking every person who ever lived with every other!"
Alacrity answered slowly, "But Ho—I mean, I saw just a little of what was going on, but I guess Hecate didn't show Paloma or me what she showed you."
Floyt heaved a sigh. "It was miraculous; it was the most compelling Precursor thing I've ever seen. And somehow I'm going to recreate it."
"Why?"
"For what it is, I suppose. Besides, wouldn't it be a little harder to cheat someone or starve them or start a war with them if you could see how you were related to them? Just a little harder, at least? In some cases?"
"Hobart Floyt, you'll be burned in effigy and shot and stabbed and crucified and clapped in irons and strangled and spat upon and similarly inconvenienced the very first time you demonstrate this impossible thing you're proposing."
"Oh." Floyt's enthusiasm ebbed. "I … guess you're—"
"Where d'you think we should start?"
Floyt didn't know what to say, so he just nodded to himself, looking out at the stars. "I've got a little list," he sang at last, tapping his proteus.
"Great!" Alacrity said brightly. "First thing we have to do is get out of Spican jurisdiction. Y'know, it's a relief that you have a reason to really want to go off after Precursor secrets. Now we both do."
"Besides, I love Heart, but I really don't want to work for some company again."
"Perhaps we can start by tracking down the Astraea Imprimatur," Floyt suggested. "Janusz and Victoria would give us a hand, don't you think?"
But Alacrity was shaking his head. "Janusz and Victoria made vague arrangement with Heart to get in touch when the heat half-lifes, but word from them may not come for years."
Alacrity added, "They might even be worse off than we are. We'll have to figure out something else, and I think I know what. I can only imagine how very glad and grateful you must be to have a synergenius for a partner!"
"I suppose so, but there's something else you should know, Alacrity. I intend to find Paloma, as well. I love her."
"Good. That'd give me a chance to sort of make things up to the both of you, helping you do that."
Floyt scratched the underside of his chin. "And, um, there's another matter. I did some research on my Inheritor's belt—on the symbols on it."
The Inheritor's belts had been sent forth by the late Director Weir who, the two had come to understand, was privy to his share of Precursor lore, too. The belts had sigils, symbols, or whatever, in common, but many that were unique to the individual Inheritor.
"So?" Alacrity said.
"So the symbols that Hecate's demon-lover systemry found so interesting—that saved us, I guess—appear to mean the same thing as the words she yelled; I retrieved them from your proteus. Hecate, it turns out, was talking in her native tongue."
"Will you just tell me, so I can get back to flying this creampuff?"
Floyt settled back into the seat and looked at the stars. "The words and the sigils on my belt mean both, 'Strange Attractor', and 'Attractor of Strange Attractors.' "
* * * *
Heart had helped the investigators as much as she could.
"Honest!" as she put it.
Somehow, those two fugitives from justice, Floyt and Fitzhugh, seemed to have either completely disappeared from the universe or temporarily evaded apprehension, depending upon whether the official talking was a law officer of low rank or high.
The investigators didn't push things too hard inboard the White Ship; the board and the White Ship Company still swung tremendous weight in the Spican system.
The Old Guard was being very meek and close-mouthed. Their voting status was returned to them, but Captain Dincrist's stock would remain inactive until Probate had sorted things out and the will was executed. It seemed likely Heart would inherit. The Old Guard wasn't in any frame of mind to offend her.
"There's still the matter of a final vote on some procedural questions," the Ship said to Heart at a certain point.
Heart looked around her at the bridge, striking a faint chime from one duraglaze slipper. "Why are you telling me?" Her father's shares might make her First Shareholder, eventually, but not yet. Up until a few seconds before, the Ship had been addressing Sibyl Higgins as First Shareholder, as the Ship had since Dincrist's death.
"In the absence of an elected chairman, First Shareholder shall function in that capacity," the aloof woman-voice cited. Heart suddenly thought that she could get to like that voice if it kept on saying things of good omen.
"As of twenty-two thirty this date, Ship time, with the activation of the transaction-of-record of Shareholder Alacrity Fitzhugh, also known as Shareholder Jordan Bowie," the Ship told her, "you are now First Shareholder."
The bridge dome came alive in displays. It took a few moments to put together what Alacrity had done. Wulf flashed his smile and patted the Nonpareil's hand. "He's transferred all Hecate's shares over to you. And it seems he's given you that one other share, his parents', too."
Higgins was taking it all in. "Heart, you'll have your father's shares as well, but I would say this makes things definite. You're the leader of the New Faction. You're the First Shareholder, but I warn you: I'll always speak my mind and vote my conscience!"
Yester was beaming up at the displays. "Whoever heard of such a gift before? Heart, he's given you the White Ship!"
Heart turned away so that they wouldn't see the tears brim up in her eyes. The tears weren't for the three hundred forty thousand shares but rather for the three hundred forty thousand and first.
* * * *
The Nonpareil put most of the commo surveillance resources of the White Ship to work, doubly eager for word of Alacrity after she found his note—YOU'RE MINE AND I'M YOURS!—under her pillow. Ten hours into the search, when Spican authorities had been ejected from the Ship and most of the major problems were under control—when it had really come to her that this greatest and most advanced product of human genius and handiwork was hers to control and hers to answer for, with its implications of what the human race would be and should be—the Ship toned for her attention again.
Some su
broutine had turned up a feature on the Uncensored Network.
Circe Minx stood outside her yacht, the Tramp-Royal, with her arm around the very wide shoulders of a fascinatingly ugly, tremendously powerful looking man a half meter and more shorter than she but far taller than the crowd that pressed round. The man had a blank look, but gazed up at Circe adoringly.
A rumorghoul named Salome Price, in plaid dermal frosting, was conducting the interview, standing on a lift platform.
"Mah plan, Salome, is to retell, as an artist, in song and dance and drama and even comedy, th' story of the long search: The Circe Minx Chronicles: Lookin' fer th' Precursors! We'll be showin' our audience many of the most famous sites and finds, along with the very latest ones and even some that've never been studied before!"
Salome was so thrilled with this second exclusive in mere days that her nipples grew prominent under the tartan frosting. "Circe, your trillions upon trillions of fans were overjoyed to hear that, in the wake of becoming your own woman again and jettisoning those two vomit bags, Floyt and Fitzhugh, you've found such fulfillment, as you've put it, in the arms of Gentry Standing Bear! But what gave you the inspiration for this monumental undertaking, which, I remind our Uncensored audience, has been underwritten by the Ministry for Educational Media?"
Circe shot the pickups a look with an EMP strong enough to overload unshielded components. "Well, dar-lin', ah've always wanted to tackle sumpthin' on what you call your higher intellectual plane. An' now ah have the time, resources, and expert advisors."
"Now, we'll be startin' off on this faraway planet called Lebensraum, where there's rumors of some amazin' finds!"
Circe shook a ringer at the pickup, mock scolding. "An' y'all better believe me, ah'll work harder on this than ah evah worked on anything! An' when mah show debuts, Salome, hon, ah hope people'll see me in a different light. D'you think they will?"
The question was so straightforward that Salome almost dropped her veneer. "Wh—uh, yeah! That is, why not? That's right! Viewers, you heard it here first!"
The crowd was applauding. Heart couldn't see what the search AI was getting at. Then somebody yelled, "Kiss 'im, Circe!" and people whooped and whistled.
As Circe obliged them, a monumental buss with Gentry Standing Bear, the huge and lovely Minx shoulder disappeared out of focus, the pickup automatically ranging in across empty space to focus on two figures lounging around the main hatch of the Tramp-Royal.
Alacrity and Floyt leaned against the ship, watching the press conference with expressions that made Heart clap her hands together and mimic Alacrity's voice: "Let's get movin'! We know what we're doin'! Uh, Ho, what are we doin'?"
The Nonpareil dropped her hands to her sides. Alacrity, what are you doing? She dug out the note he'd left under her pillow and thought it at the image in the holo.
You're mine and I'm yours!
About The Author
Brian Daley is the author of numerous novels of science fiction and fantasy, the most recent being Jinx on a Terran Inheritance.
He also scripted the National Public Radio serial adaptations of Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back. His whereabouts are subject to change without notice, but he favors Manhattan
Scan Notes
21 Oct 2003—Scanned By Theoilman
28 Oct 2003—Proofed By Escaped Chicken Spirits (ECS) v1.0
04 Aug 2005—Re-Proofed By Fltgoon v1.1
01 January 2008—Converted To LIT Format By B.D. v1.1