The Ship Who Sang

by Anne McCaffrey

  ‘Davo, please!’

  ‘Don’t blush, my dear. Only teasing. However, a simple yes or no will suffice. Can Prane rehearse today? That free-fall staging is going to be difficult and he mentioned wanting to go through several scenes now when he has more time. Helva can oblige us with free-fall as we choose. Can’t you, Helva?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It sounds so human,’ Kurla said, suppressing a little shudder.

  ‘She, please, Kurla. Helva is human; aren’t you, Helva?’

  ‘Oh, you’d noticed?’

  Davo laughed at the consternation on Kurla’s face.

  ‘My dear Miss Ster, surely you, a medical attendant, would have tumbled to the identity of the captain of our ship?’

  ‘I’ve had a lot on my mind,’ she said, lifting her chin defensively. ‘But I apologize,’ she added, swinging round, ‘if I’ve offended you, Helva . . .’ Then her eyes rested on Prane’s closed door and her face flooded with color.

  ‘You have been the soul of discretion,’ Helva replied, aware of the girl’s sudden confusion. ‘As I try to be,’ she added, so pointedly that Davo understood Kurla’s blush.

  ‘Honor among cyborgs, huh?’ he asked, his eyes dancing as he added a subtle thrust of his own.

  ‘Yes, and considerable evidence that we are eminently trustworthy, loyal, courteous, honest, thoughtful, and inhumanly incorruptible.’

  Davo roared with laughter until Kurla, pointing toward Prane’s cabin, shushed him.

  ‘Why? I want him up and about. It ought to be good for his soul to wake to the sound of my merry laughter.’

  ‘That sounds like a good entrance line,’ Prane remarked, pushing the door aside. He was smiling slightly, his shoulders erect and easy, his head high, all trace of fatigue and weakness erased. He hadn’t had that much rest, Helva knew it, not after murmuring through plays half the night. But he even looked younger. ‘Shall we have at it, Davo?’ he asked.

  ‘You’ll “have at” nothing, Solar,’ Kurla said emphatically, ‘until you’ve eaten.’

  He meekly acquiesced.

  In spite of her intention to remain aloof from the personality conflicts of this quartet, Helva watched the rehearsal with keen interest. A script was thrust in Kurla’s hands and she was made the prompter.

  ‘Now,’ Prane began crisply, ‘we have been given no inkling of Corviki attitude toward personal combat, if they have one. We don’t know if they can appreciate the archaic code which made this particular duel inevitable. Interpreting our social structures, our ancient moralities, however, is not the function of this troupe. According to the Survey Captain, the Corviki were entranced with the concept of special “formulae” (the crew had been watching Othello) intended purely to waste energy in search of excitation and recombination with no mass objective.’ He gave an embarrassed laugh. ‘There always has been an element of the population that ranks play-acting as a waste of energy. However, there is no point in our trying to play Shakespeare as a social commentary. We shall be classicists – pure Shakespeare as the Globe troupe would have played it.’

  ‘For purity, then, Juliet ought to be a preadolescent boy,’ Davo reminded him with wry malice.

  ‘Not that pure, Davo,’ Prane laughed. ‘I’ll keep the casting arrangements as they are, I believe. We shall have enough of a problem acting in free-fall and getting used to the envelopes the Corviki will supply us. So, if we can get stage movement set in our minds now, we shall have only the problem of becoming accustomed to the new form when we reach Beta Corvi. I think of the exchange as merely another costume.

  ‘Now Davo, as Tybalt, you enter downstage. Benvolio and Mercutio will be stage south and I, as Romeo, will approach from elliptical east.’

  Both men had worked in free-fall, Helva noticed, for they modified all gestures skillfully yet managed to simulate the power of a thrust, the grace of a dancing retreat. Such movements, however, required great physical effort and both were shortly sweating as they floated through their measured duel again and again to set the routine in their minds.

  They worked hard, experimenting, changing, improving until they got through the duel scene twice without a flaw. Even allowing for his handicap, Helva was impressed by Prane.

  Ansra drifted lauguidly into the main cabin and the atmosphere changed so abruptly that Helva inadvertently scanned her warnings system.

  ‘Good morrow, good madam,’ Prane said jauntily. ‘Shall we have at the balcony scene, fair Juliet?’

  ‘My dear Solar, you have obviously been hard at it with Davo. Are you feeling up to more?’

  Prane hesitated a microsecond before he bowed and with a genuine smile replied: ‘You, as Juliet, are up, my dear,’ and he gestured with a flourish to the area where she was to play the scene, above him.

  He turned then, floating to the edge of the cabin and Ansra, her jibe ignored, shrugged and projected herself upward.

  ‘Give me Benvolio’s line, please,’ Prane asked Kurla.

  Ansra’s entrance had flustered the girl and she flipped nervously through the sides.

  ‘Act II, scene i, Kurla,’ Davo murmured encouragingly.

  Helva dropped her voice to a tenor register:

  ‘“Go then; for ’tis in vain

  To seek him here that means not to be found.”’

  ‘Zounds, who was that?’ cried Prane, whirling in such surprised reaction that he drifted toward the wall, absently holding himself off with one hand.

  ‘Me,’ Helva said meekly in her proper voice.

  ‘Can you change voices at will, woman?’

  ‘Well, it’s only a question of projection, you know. And since my voice is reproduced through audio units, I can select the one proper for the voice register required.’

  The effect of her ability on Prane, Helva noticed, was nothing to its effect on Ansra.

  ‘How could you see to read the line?’ Prane demanded, gesturing toward the script in Kurla’s hands.

  ‘I’ve been scanning the text from the library banks.’ Helva forbore to tell the long story of the childhood years during which she had been hooked on ancient movies, leading somehow naturally to Shakespeare, and opera, both light and grand. Her only hobby – and it was her own memory she was scanning.

  Prane imprudently flung out both arms and had to correct against the ceiling.

  ‘What incredible luck. Can you, would you read something else?’

  ‘What? Auditioning a ship, Prane?’ Ansra asked, her voice richly intimating that he’d gone mad.

  ‘If I’m not wrong,’ Davo put in, his eyes glinting sardonically, ‘Helva here is also known as the ship who sings. Surely you saw the tri-cast on her some years back, Ansra? In fact I know you did. We were playing the Greeks in Draconis at the time.’

  ‘If you please, Davo,’ Prane-the-director interrupted, gliding over to Helva’s central column. ‘You are the ship who sings?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Would you be kind enough to indulge me by reading the Nurse’s speech, Act I, scene iii, where Lady Capulet and the Nurse discuss Juliet’s marriage. Begin “Even or odd of all days in the year” . . .’

  ‘The nurse is to be played as an earthy type?’

  ‘Yes, indeed, blissfully unregenerate. Her lines are a triumph of characterization, you know: only she can speak the ones the playwright gave her. That is, of course, the test of true characterization.’

  ‘I thought this was a rehearsal of my scene, not a lecture,’ Ansra remarked acidly.

  Prane silenced her with a peremptory gesture. ‘The cue is,’ and he altered his voice to a husky, aging contralto, ‘“A fortnight and odd days” . . .’

  Helva resigned herself to an active part in this incident, and responded as Nurse Angelica.

  Helva called a halt to what promised to be a round-the-chrono affair, on the spurious grounds of some critical computation. What had turned critical was Ansra’s temper.

  Davo and Kurla had willingly read additional parts, Davo with an insight t
o the minor characters that wrung mute respect from Helva and generous thanks from Prane. Kurla rose to the challenge of Lady Montague. Ansra’s Juliet became less and less convincing. She was ‘reading,’ not acting, certainly not reacting to the passion, the youthful enthusiasm and tender passion of Prane’s Romeo. She was wooden. The voice was youthful, the gestures girlish, but she resisted every effort of Prane’s to draw out of her that quality he wanted Juliet to project.

  None of this was obvious from the even tone of his courteous suggestions, but it was most apparent to the others. And to Helva, Ansra’s behavior was doubly inexcusable.

  Once Helva had withdrawn, Kurla announced that it was time to eat a hot decent meal. She then insisted that they all get some sleep. Helva watched surreptitiously as Kurla ran a quick medical check on Prane. She, too, was amazed that the Solar was in remarkably strong vigor after such an intense and long rehearsal.

  ‘You’ve got to rest, Solar Prane. I don’t care what the recorder says. You can’t put forth the energy you did today without replenishing it in sleep,’ Kurla said firmly. ‘I’m tired! And you’ve another planetfall to make.’

  He made a boyish grimace but lay back on the shock-mattress, his eyes closed, one hand on his chest.

  Tenderly Kurla covered his long, lax body. She turned abruptly and let her motion carry her quickly from the cabin. Prane’s eyes flew open and the look in his eyes was almost more than Helva could morally observe. So Kurla was indeed the sun of Prane’s regard and Ansra, the envious moon, already sick and pale with grief . . .

  Helva was overwhelmingly relieved that she’d be out of this affair in a scant day’s time. And yet, Ansra had been indiscreet enough to hint at action more vengeful than envious. Would the fact that she now knew Helva was no automaton inhibit her plans?

  The passengers began to sleep. All, that is, except Prane. He began Richard III, with Gloucester’s ‘Now is the winter of our discontent’ to Richmond’s ‘Peace lives again: That she may long live here, God say amen!’ Considering the day’s proceedings Helva thought that choice of sleep-conjuring all too appropriate. If mindtrap produced such perfect recall . . .

  Some time toward dawn of that day, Helva remembered a detail, and berating herself for incredible obtuseness, contacted Regulus on the tight beam.

  ‘Good to hear your voice, Helva,’ Central Com responded with marked affability.

  ‘I distrust such geniality from you. What is being cooked up for me? Not another brawnless assignment – because I’ll refuse it. I’ve got rights and I’ll invoke ’em.’

  ‘My, we’re touchy. How can you be so suspicious? And so crass?’

  ‘So you’ll know exactly how I stand. Now listen to me, is there a free accommodation, no, make it a suite . . . on the Orbital Station in the free-fall section?’

  ‘I’ll check, but why?’

  ‘Check and answer.’

  ‘Aye-firmative.’

  ‘Great. I request that it be assigned Solar Prane and such of his company as accept. We’ve been running in free-fall, in preparation for their assignment and they ought not to have a readjust to full-grav.’

  ‘Good suggestion. But doesn’t such an assignment tempt you, Helva?’

  ‘Don’t use that wheedling tone with me, Central.’

  ‘When you obviously have taken their welfare to heart enough to request orbital accommodations for Solar Prane?’

  Helva caught herself. She mustn’t sound so concerned.

  ‘I was raised to be considerate. Just seems a shame to set back the progress they’ve made in free-fall adjustment.’

  ‘No problem, Helva. This Beta Corvi mission has topmost priority.’

  ‘Say, I’m curious about this psyche transfer bit . . .’

  ‘Hold it, gal. Ask me no questions, since you’ve made it so plain where you stand.’

  ‘Okay, I’ll stand off, but I think it’s petty of you,’ and she closed the tight beam.

  Until her passengers awoke, Helva pondered Central’s comments. They wanted her for this: well, they could beg, blandish and bribe, but she was resolved to resist all bait until she was partnered.

  She did not bother to inform any of her passengers of her sublight arrangements with Central, but connected with the proper hatch at the Orbital Station as if this had been her programmed destination. Regulus IV swam beneath them, brilliant in the reflection of its primary.

  ‘We were told we’d be landing at Regulus Base,’ Ansra protested as she looked into the lock of the Station. She glared threateningly at the startled lock attendant, drifting midportal.

  ‘Free-fall?’ Davo exclaimed. ‘I’d rather stay here.’

  ‘This is ridiculous,’ Ansra went on, directing herself to the confused attendant. ‘I demand to be taken to the Base. I demand to see the official in charge of this assignment.’

  ‘The XH-834 is scheduled to land at Base as soon as she has discharged her passengers here, Miss Colmer,’ the man said placatingly.

  ‘If you will move into the main cabin, Miss Colmer, I can close the locks now,’ Helva said, for Prane and Kurla had pushed into the Station lock.

  Ducking around Ansra, the attendant sent the luggage, piled in the lock, spinning stationward. As soon as he was clear, Helva closed her outer portal. Ansra was forced to step inside.

  ‘Just wait till I report you, you . . . you . . .’

  ‘Thing? Informer? Abomination? Fink?’ Helva tendered helpfully.

  ‘I’ll have you decommissioned, you tin-plated bitch!’

  Just then Helva applied thrust sufficient to send Ansra, accustomed to free-fall, reeling backward into the nearby couch. And kept her there cursing steadily and viciously, all through re-entry and touchdown.

  ‘You’ll regret that insolence, too, you bodiless Bernhardt,’ was Ansra’s parting taunt as she staggered to the passenger lift.

  ‘Sorry you had trouble enduring standard re-entry maneuvers, Miss Colmer. You were advised to remain on the Station,’ Helva boomed on her exterior speaker, for the benefit of the vehicle waiting to take the woman the short distance to the Main Administration Complex before which Helva had landed. ‘Hey, Helva, what did you do to that Colmer creature?’ Central Com asked her on the private beam a little while later. ‘If you weren’t in good odor with the powers-that-preside, you’d be in for an official reprimand and a fine. She’s got some good friends in high places, you know.’

  ‘So that’s how she got this assignment.’

  ‘Hey, gal, I’m on your side, but that kind of remark . . .’

  ‘If I wanted to be nasty, I’d play back some of the honest-to-goodness, unexpurgated, uncensored, deathless movements of my most recent trip through the vacuum of outer space.’

  ‘Like, for instance?’

  ‘I said, if I wanted to be nasty.’ She cut the contact and looked around for more sympathetic company.

  Crowding the Administration landing acres were no less than 20 brain ships. A veritable convention? Old home week? She spotted Amon, right up in the front row with five of her own class. When she tried to signal the VL-834, she couldn’t get through. In fact, she couldn’t get a line into any of her peers: the ship-to-ship frequencies were overloaded.

  Was everyone aspiring to that damned Beta Corvi assignment? She ought to warn ’em off. She called the traffic tower to ask for another landing slot, preferably nearer the brawn barracks. There must be other ships on the 20 kilometers-square base interested in chatting with her.

  ‘So nice to hear from you,’ Cencom cut in over Traffic Control. ‘Orders are for you to stay put, loudmouth.’

  ‘Can I at least have some company? From the brawn barracks? Remember? I was promised a brawn this time. And this time I’d better get one. If you knew what this poor lone female, totally unprotected from . . .’

  ‘I can promise you company,’ Cencom grudgingly admitted and cut off.

  Helva waited, her circuits open, her passenger lift invitingly grounded. And waited. She was beginning to exp
erience justifiable irritation when she received a boarding request. Activating the lift eagerly, she was disappointed to scan only one figure gliding up to her lock.

  ‘You’re not a brawn.’

  ‘Thanks, pal,’ the wiry small man said in an all-too-familiar voice.

  ‘You’re . . .’

  ‘Niall Parollan, of Regulus, your coordinating communications officer, Planet Grade, Section Supervisor, Central Worlds BB Ship Division.’

  ‘You’ve got your nerve.’

  He grinned amiably at her, not the least bit intimidated by her booming. ‘You’ve enough for four of me, dear.’ He used the manual switch to close the lock and sauntered over to the couch that faced her column. His uniform was regulation, but it had been tailored to fit his short, well-proportioned body: the boots he wore were Mizar gray lizard and molded the calf of his leg.

  ‘Make yourself at home.’

  ‘I intend to. Feel I ought to get to know you better now I’m your supervisor.’

  ‘Why?’

  He gave her a wicked stare and smiled, showing very white even teeth.

  ‘I wanted to see just why such a storm is raging over the possession of one Helva, the XH-834.’

  ‘Among brawns?’ She was gratified.

  ‘You sound hungry. Need your nutrients checked?’

  ‘I don’t trust you, Parollan,’ Helva announced after a pause. ‘There is nothing to see . . . of Helva.’

  ‘Now, there’s where you’re wrong, girl,’ and he rubbed one short-fingered, broad-palmed hand across his mouth and chin. ‘Yes, there is something about you . . .’

  ‘I had a new spray job at Nekkar.’

  ‘I know. I checked accounting.’

  ‘The ingrates. Thought I got that free.’ Then, as he chuckled at her surprise, she added, ‘If you’ve been checking my standing, you know I’m well able to afford any penalties for refusing assignment.’

  ‘Oh ho, you bite, too,’ crowed Niall, rocking back and forth in an excess of delight. ‘Don’t fool you, do I?’

  ‘Not for a microsecond. I want a brawn, Parollan, not a snippy little mouthpiece like you.’

  He roared with delight.

  ‘Now I see why.’ Then suddenly he was completely serious. He leaned forward, his eyes on her panel in an attitude so familiar it gave her a frightful wrench. Then he was talking and she listened.