The Ship Who Sang

by Anne McCaffrey

  ‘You’re Van Goghian?’ Theoda demanded.

  ‘By chance, and one of the immunes.’

  ‘You heard what I was saying? You agree?’

  ‘I’ve heard. I neither agree nor disagree. I’ll try anything that sounds even remotely feasible. Your idea is reasonable and the computer has only the one positive suggestion – therapy. I’ll bring my son.’

  He turned when he reached the lock, shook his fist back at Helva. ‘You drugged me, you silver-plated sorceress.’

  ‘An inaccurate analysis, but the insult is accepted,’ Helva said as he disappeared, scowling, down the lift.

  Elated, Theoda snatched out her viewer and carefully re-studied the films of the technique she would try.

  ‘They used steroids as medications,’ she mumbled. ‘Have you any?’

  ‘No medication was indicated on the report,’ Helva reminded her, ‘but you can get Onro to steal what you require from the synthesizer in the hospital. He is a Senior MedOfficer.’

  ‘Yes, yes, that helps,’ and Theoda lapsed again into fierce concentration. ‘Why did they use . . . oh, yes, of course. They didn’t have any conglomerates, did they?’

  Fascinated, Helva watched as Theoda scanned the film, winding and rewinding, rechecking, making notations, muttering to herself, pausing to gaze off into space in abstracted thought.

  When Theoda had been through her notes the fourth time, Helva insisted with authority that she eat something. Theoda had just finished the stew when Onro returned with the limp body of a redheaded child in his arms. Onro’s rough face was impassive, almost rigid in its lack of expression as the child was tenderly laid down on the bunk. Helva noticed the almost universal trait of the victims, the half-closed eyes, as if the lids were too heavy to keep open.

  Kneeling down beside the bunk, Theoda turned the boy’s face so that her eyes were directly on a level with his.

  ‘Child, I know you can hear. We are going to work your body to help you remember what your body could do. Soon we will have you running under the sun again.’

  Without more ado and disregarding Onro’s guttural protest, she placed the boy on his stomach on the deck, seized one arm and one leg and signaled to Onro to do likewise.

  ‘We are taking you back to the time when you were a baby and first tried to creep. We are making your body crawl forward on your belly like a snake.’

  In a patient monotone, she droned her instructions. Helva timed the performance at 15 minutes. They waited a full hour and repeated the drill. Another hour passed and Theoda, equally patient, droned instructions to pattern the child’s body in a walking, upright position, alternating the left hand with right foot, and right hand with left foot. Another hour and she repeated the walking. Then back to the crawling, again and again in double repetition: the two therapists caught naps when they could. Surreptitiously, Helva closed her lock, cut the cabin audio on her relays and ignored the insistent radio demands from the hospital that she put Theoda or Onro on the radio. After 24 hours, Theoda alternated the two patterns, and included basic muscular therapy on the lax body, patiently, patiently manipulating the limbs in the various attitudes and postures, down to the young toes and fingers.

  By the 27th hour, Onro, worn by previous exhaustion, frustration and increasing hopelessness, dropped into a sleep from which violent shaking could not rouse him. Theoda, looking more and more gray, continued, making each repetition of every motion as carefully and fully as she had the first time she started the intensive re-patterning.

  Helva ignored the crowd outside. She paid no attention to the muted demands, threats, and entreaties.

  ‘Theoda,’ Helva said softly in the 30th hour, ‘have you noticed, as I have, the tendency of the neck muscles to contort?’

  ‘Yes, I have. And this child was once so far gone that a tracheotomy was necessary. Notice the scar here,’ and she pointed to the thin mark. ‘I see, too, that the eyelids describe a slightly larger arc than when we began the therapy. The child knows we are helping him. See, his eyes open . . . ever so slightly, but it is enough. I was right! I knew I was right!’

  ‘You won’t have much more time,’ Helva said. ‘The authorities of Annigoni have called in a Service Craft and it is due to land beside me in half an hour. I will be forced to open or risk damage to the ship, which I am conditioned to avoid.’

  Theoda looked up, startled.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Look in my screen,’ and Helva turned on the picture at the pilot’s console so that Theoda could see the crowd of people and vehicles clustered at the base of the ship. ‘They are getting a bit insistent.’

  ‘I had no idea.’

  ‘You needed quiet, I could at least supply that,’ Helva replied. ‘But to all intents and purposes, their Senior Medical Officer, his son, and their visiting technical adviser are imprisoned inside me and they suspect that my recent . . . that I am turning rogue.’

  ‘But didn’t you tell them we were conducting therapy . . .’

  ‘Naturally.’

  ‘Of all the ridiculous . . .’

  ‘It’s time for therapy. Every minute is necessary now.’

  ‘First he must be fed.’

  Theoda carefully inserted the concentrated solution in the thin vein, smoothing down the lump that formed as the nutritive spray entered.

  ‘A sweet child, I imagine, Helva, from his face,’ she said.

  ‘A young hellion, with all those freckles,’ snorted Helva.

  ‘They are usually the sweetest inside,’ Theoda said firmly.

  Helva noticed the eyelids droop down on the cheek and then raise again. She decided she was right, not the therapist. Imagine calling red hair and freckles sweet!

  Again the patient routine, the assisted patterning. Then a loud thud startled Theoda. It shook the sleeping form of the doctor where he lay on the deck. Helva, with one eye outside, had expected the blow. Onro roused himself garrulously, unaware at first of his surroundings.

  ‘Whassa matter?’

  A second dull thud.

  ‘Whatinell’s happening? Who’s knocking?’

  ‘Half the planet,’ remarked Helva drily and tuned up the exterior visual and aural. She immediately cut down the nearly deafening noise.

  ‘All right, all right,’ she said loudly to the audience, her voice amplifying easily over their angry roars.

  ‘DEMAND PERMISSION TO ENTER, XH-834,’ squalled someone at her base. She meekly activated the lift and opened the lock. Onro stamped to the opening and leaned down, shouting.

  ‘Whatinell’s the matter here? Go ‘way all of you. Have you no decency? What’s the bloody fuss about? Can’t a man get some sleep around here? Only quiet place on the whole lousy planet.’

  The lift had by then come abreast of him with the brawn from the service ship and the stuffy hospital official of Theoda’s tour.

  ‘MedOfficer Onro, we feared for you, particularly when your son was discovered missing from his bed.’

  ‘Administrator Carif, did you expect that the lady therapist had kidnapped me and my son and was holding us hostage on a rogue ship? Romanticists all. Hey, what are you doing . . . you young squirt,’ he demanded as the brawn made a pass at the protected panel of Helva’s shaft.

  ‘I am following orders from Central Control.’

  ‘You warm up that tight beam and tell Central Control to mind its own damned business. Weren’t for Helva here and the peace and quiet she maintained for us, don’t know where we’d be at.’

  He stalked into the cabin, where his son again lay on the floor, with Theoda painstakingly applying her Doman-Delacato therapy.

  ‘Don’t know how many we’ll save this way, but it does work and you, young man, will tell Central Control, after you’ve told them to go to hell for me, that they will issue authority to Theoda to recruit any and all . . . if necessary . . . of this planet’s population as a therapy force to activate her rehabilitation program.’

  He got down on his knees by his so
n.

  ‘All right, boy, crawl.’

  ‘Why, that child will catch a cold in this draft . . .’ the official exclaimed.

  Some woman was trying to get Helva to lower the lift for her but Helva ignored her as the beads of sweat started on the child’s face. There was no muscular movement, not so much as a twitch.

  ‘Son, try. Try. Try!’ pleaded Onro.

  ‘Your mind remembers what your body once could do, right arm forward, left knee up,’ said Theoda, with such control that no hint of the tension she must feel showed in her calm, gentle tones.

  Helva could see the boy’s throat muscles moving convulsively but she knew the watchers were expecting more dramatic motions.

  ‘Come on, momma’s sweet little freckled-face boy,’ she drawled in an irritatingly insulting voice.

  Before the annoyed watchers could turn to remonstrate her, the boy’s elbow had actually slid an inch on the floor and his left knee, slightly flexed by Theoda’s hands, skidded behind as the throat worked violently and a croaking sound issued from his lips. With a cry of inarticulate joy, Onro clasped his son to him.

  ‘You see, you see. Theoda was right.’

  ‘I see that the child made a voluntary movement, yes,’ Carif was forced to agree. ‘But one isolated example is . . .’ he spread his hands expressively, unconvinced.

  ‘One is enough. We haven’t had time for more,’ Onro said. ‘I’ll put it to the people out there. They’ll be the workforce.’

  Carrying his son to the lock, he yelled down what had happened. There was a great cheering and applause. Then the little group at the base of the ship kept pointing urgently to the woman who had begged for the lift.

  ‘I can’t hear you,’ Onro called, for many people were shouting at once, all trying to get across the same idea.

  Helva sent the lift down and the woman came up it. As soon as she was halfway to Onro she shouted her message.

  ‘In the nursery, we did as Therapist Theoda suggested. There is already some improvement among the children. Not much, not much and we want to know what we are doing wrong. But four of the babies are already able to cry,’ she babbled, stepping into the ship and running to Theoda, where the woman leaned wearily against the door jamb. ‘I never expected to be happy to hear a baby cry again. But some are crying and some are making awful sounds, and one little girl even waved a hand when she was diapered. Oh, we’ve done just what you said.’

  Theoda looked her triumph at Carif and he, shrugging acceptance of the accomplishment, nodded.

  ‘Now, Carif,’ said Onro briskly, stepping into the lift, his son still cradled in his arms, ‘this is what we’ll do. How we’ll organize. We don’t have to take everyone on your very busy planet. The Youth Corps can be called in from Avalon. Just their bag of tricks.’

  ‘Thank you for believing in me,’ Theoda told the nurse.

  ‘One of the babies was my sister’s,’ the woman said softly, with tears in her eyes. ‘She’s the only one alive from the entire town.’

  The lift had come back up and the ‘brawn’ and the nurse took it. Theoda had to pack her gear.

  ‘The easy part is over, Helva. Now it’s all uphill, encouraging, instructing, upholding patience. Even Onro’s son has a long, long way to go with therapy before he approaches his pre-plague physical condition.’

  ‘But at least there is hope.’

  ‘There is always hope while there is life.’

  ‘Was it your son?’ asked Helva.

  ‘Yes, and my daughter, my husband, my whole family. I was the only immune,’ and Theoda’s face contorted. ‘With all my training, with all the skill of years of practice, I couldn’t save them.’

  Theoda’s eyes closed against that remembered agony.

  Helva blacked out her own vision and with a deep indrawn mental breath as Theoda’s words echoed the protest she herself had voiced at her ineffectuality. It still burned in her mind: the searing memory of Jennan, looking toward her as he died.

  ‘I don’t know why one makes a certain emotional adjustment,’ Theoda said wearily. ‘I guess it’s the survival factor forcing you to go on, preserving sanity and identity by a re-focusing of values. I felt that if I could learn my profession so well that never again would I have to watch someone I loved die because of my ineffectiveness, then the ignorance that killed my family would be forgiven.’

  ‘But how could you have turned a space plague?’ Helva demanded.

  ‘Oh, I know I couldn’t have, but I still don’t forgive myself.’

  Helva turned Theoda’s words over in her mind, letting their significance sink into her like an anesthetic salve.

  ‘Thank you, Theoda,’ she said finally, looking again at the therapist. ‘What are you crying for?’ she asked, astonished to see Theoda, sitting on the edge of the bunk, tears streaming unheeded down her face.

  ‘You. Because you can’t can you? And you lost your Jennan and they never even gave you a chance to rest. They just ordered you up to take me here and . . .’

  Helva stared at Theoda, torn with a variety of emotions: incredulous that someone else did understand her grief over Jennan; that Theoda was, at the moment of her own triumph, concerned by Helva’s sorrow. She felt the hard knot of grief coming untied and she was suddenly rather astonished that she, Helva, was the object of pity.

  ‘By the Almighty, Helva, wake up,’ shouted Onro at her base. Helva hurriedly sent down the lift for him.

  ‘What on earth are you crying for? Don’t bother to answer,’ he rattled on, charging into the cabin and snatching Theoda’s kitbag from her limp hands. He plowed on, into the galley. ‘It’s undoubtedly in a good cause. But there’s a whole planet waiting for your instructions . . .’ He was scooping up all the coffee containers he could find and stuffing them into the kitbag, and his pockets. ‘I promise you can cry all you want once you’ve given me the therapy routine.’ He made a cradle of her hands and piled more coffee cans on. ‘Then I’ll lend you my shoulder.’

  ‘She’s got mine any time she wants,’ Helva put in, a little unsteadily.

  Onro stopped long enough to glance at Helva.

  ‘You’re not making sense either,’ he said in an irascible voice. ‘You haven’t got a shoulder.’

  ‘She’s making perfectly good sense,’ Theoda said stoutly as Onro started to push her toward the lock.

  ‘Come on, Theoda, come on.’

  ‘Thank you, my friend,’ Theoda murmured turning back to Helva. Then she whirled away, allowing Onro to start the lift.

  ‘No, no, Theoda, I’m the one who’s grateful,’ Helva called as Theoda’s head disappeared past the edge of the lock. Softly, to herself, she added, ‘I needed tears.’

  As the landcar zoomed back toward the hospital complex, Helva could see Theoda’s arm waving farewell and knew Theoda understood all that hadn’t been said. The dust settled down on the road to the hospital as Helva signaled Regulus Base of the completion of her mission and her estimated return.

  Then, like a Phoenix rising again from the bitter ashes of her hundred hours’ mourning, Helva lifted on the brilliant tail of exploding fuel toward the stars, and healing.

  The Ship Who Killed

  EVERY DIVERTED SYNAPSE in Helva’s shell-encased body vibrated in unconditional revolt against the autocracy of Central Worlds Service.

  ‘All haste, all haste,’ she snarled in impotent revolt to her sister ship, the 822, on the private ship-to-ship band on which not even Cencom could eavesdrop.

  The Seld-Ilsa snorted unsympathetically. ‘You’re doing something, which is more than I can say in Mediation Service. I’ve spent weeks and weeks on end waiting for them to make up their minds which planetary crisis is most crucial. By the time we get there, critical mass has been reached and we have a helluva mess to clean up.’

  ‘You think MedServ doesn’t proscrastinate?’ Helva retorted sharply. ‘Why Jennan and I . . .’ and she stopped, startled to have been able to mention his name.

  Ilsa took advan
tage of the brief pause and grumbled on, oblivious to Helva’s stunned silence.

  ‘You’d think they’d have briefed us better in training. When I think of the situations I’ve already encountered that were never even mentioned! Theory, procedure, technique, that’s all we handled. Not a single practical suggestion. Just garbage, garbage, trivial garbage. They don’t need brain ships, they need computers!’ The 822 ranted on. ‘Stupid, senseless, unemotional computers.’

  Helva spotted the fallacies in the 822’s complaints but remained quiet. She and Ilsa had been classmates and she knew from past experience the voids in the other’s personality.

  ‘I heard,’ the 822 said confidentially, ‘that your mission has to do with that blue block building in the hospital annex.’

  Helva adjusted her right fin scanner but the oblong structure was devoid of any unusual feature that would indicate its contents.

  ‘Have you heard when I’m supposed to hasten away from here again?’ she asked Ilsa hopefully.

  ‘Can’t talk now; here comes Seld back. See you around.’

  Helva watched as the 822’s brawn-half ascended to the airlock and the SI-822 lifted off Regulus Center Base. Seld had partied with Jennan in Helva one time when both ships were down at Leviticus IV. Seld had a passable bass, as she recalled it. Envy briefly touched her. She flicked back to the ambiguous hospital annex, savagely wondering what kind of emergency this would be. And would she remain an X-designate the rest of her service life?

  She had set down at the end of the great Regulus field, the farthest edge from the Service Cemetery. Despite her resignation to Jennan’s loss, despite Theoda’s healing tears, Helva could not bring herself to grind more salt into her sorrow by proximity to Jennan’s grave. Perhaps in a century or so . . . Consequently, waiting around on Regulus was painful. And with the 822 gone, she could no longer divert her pain into anger at the prolonged wait she must endure.