How had this didacticism of his escaped Psychprobe? And another thing she had noticed about him, whether he would ever admit it consciously or not, the very concept of cyborgs like Helva was repugnant to Teron. A brawn was very much aware, if the majority of Central Worlds’ populations were not, that behind the ship’s titanium bulkhead reposed a shell, containing an inert – but – complete human body.
If only Teron weren’t so thoroughly irritating, she could almost feel sorry for him. And before he had antagonized her, she had actually understood this drive to perfection that motivated every thought and action. Teron was psychotically afraid of error, of making any mistake because mistake implied failure and failure was inadmissible. If he made no mistakes, he would never be guilty of failure and would be a success.
Well, Helva mused, I’m not afraid of making a mistake and I’m not afraid of admitting failure. And I sure made one with Teron. When he starts mistrusting shell people, he is not good to me or Central Worlds. Well, I won’t be vindictive. I’ll request a change and take the fine. It won’t set me too far back in the red. And with a new partner and a couple of good assignments, I’ll still Pay-off. But Teron goes off my deck!
The decision of divorce, now subvocalized, made her feel much better.
When Teron woke the next ‘day’, he checked, as he always did, every gauge, dial and meter, forward and aft. This practice took him most of the morning. A similar rundown would have taken Helva 10 minutes at the outside. By custom and by any other brawn but Teron, the check was left to the brain partner. Wearily Helva had to read back to Teron her findings, which he corroborated with his own.
‘Shipshape and bristol fashion,’ he commented as he always did. Then he seated himself at the pilot console awaiting touchdown on Tania Borealis.
As the TH-834 had had planetfalls on Durrell, Tania Borealis’ fourth planet before, the spaceport was familiar with Teron; familiar with and contemptuous to the point of addressing all remarks to Helva rather than to her brawn. If this complimented Helva, it made Teron harder to deal with later. He responded by being twice as officious and pompous with the port officials and the Health Service Captain to whom the cargo of rare drugs had been assigned. A certain amount of extra precaution was required, considering the nature and potency of the drugs, but it was offensive of Teron to tight-beam back to Central Worlds for a replica of Captain Brandt’s ID Cube before turning over the invaluable packet to him.
To make matters worse, Niall Parollan, being Section Supervisor, had had to take the call, and Helva caught all the nuances in his carefully official words.
Helva seethed inwardly. It would have to be Parollan. But she had the heretofore unexperienced urge to burst outward from her shell in all directions. Parollan would be unbearably righteous no matter when she filed intent to change brawns. There were three more stops, one at Tania Australis and the two Alula counterparts, before she would touch down at Regulus Base. Better let Niall Parollan have his laugh now so he’d be over it by the time she did ditch Teron.
So, girding herself for Parollan’s smug reception, Helva flashed a private signal for him to keep the tight beam open. Teron, slave that he was to protocol, would see Captain Brandt off the ship, to the waiting landcar. She’d have a chance to file her intention then.
‘Tower to the TH-834. Permission to board you requested by the Antiolathan Xixon,’ said Durrell Tower.
‘Permission refused,’ Helva said without so much as a glance in Teron’s direction.
‘Pilot Teron speaking,’ the brawn interjected forcefully, striding to the console and opening the local channel direct. ‘What is the purpose of this request?’
‘Don’t know. The gentlemen are on their way by ground car.’
Teron disconnected and glanced out the open airlock. Brandt’s car was just passing the oncoming vehicle midfield.
‘You have no right to issue orders independently, Helva, when the request has been properly stated.’
‘Have you ever heard of an Antiolathan Xixon?’ Helva demanded. ‘And isn’t this a restricted mission?’
‘I am perfectly aware of the nature of our mission and I have never heard of an Antiolathan Xixon. That doesn’t mean there isn’t one. And, as it sounds religious and one of our prime Service directives is to be respectful to any and all religious orders, we should receive him.’
‘True enough. But may I remind Pilot Teron that I am his senior in service by some years and that I have access to memory banks, mechanical memory banks, less prone to lapsus memoriae than the human mind? And there is no Xixon.’
‘The request was issued properly,’ Teron repeated.
‘Shouldn’t we consult Central first?’
‘There are some actions that are indicated without recourse to official sanction.’
‘Oh, really?’
The groundcar had arrived and the Xixon-people had dutifully requested permission to board. Their arrival meant no chance for Helva to speak privately with Central. She was doubly infuriated by Teron’s childish insistence on seeing whoever these Xixon were. She knew perfectly well, if she had countermanded his order, he would have been in the right of it to call her down. But since he had taken the initiative, naturally it was all in order.
The four men stepped on board, two in plain grey tunics, stepping smartly inside the lock as though the vanguard of a great dignitary. Sidearms hung from their belts and both wore curious cylindrical whistles on neckchains. The third man, gray of hair but vigorous, obsequiously ushered in the fourth, a white-haired man of imposing stature in a long, gray-black robe. He fingered a whistle, larger than the guards, but similar in design, as if it were some sacred talisman.
There was something not at all reassuring, Helva noted, in that obsequious performance. For the gray-haired man, in the action of ushering, was missing no single detail of the cabin’s appointments. Just as he switched his direction to put him beside Teron, who was still at the control console, the old man reached the titanium bulkhead behind which Helva resided. The maneuvers were almost completed when something in Helva’s mind went wild with alarm.
‘Teron, they’re impostors,’ she cried, remembering with sudden hope that the tight beam to Central Worlds was still open.
The white-haired man lost all trace of formal dignity and, mouthing syllables in a frightful cadence, stabbed a finger towards her column.
Helva, in the brief moment before she lost consciousness, saw the two guards blowing on their whistles, the piercing notes sonically jamming the ship’s circuitry. She saw Teron slump to the floor of the cabin, felled by the gray-haired man. Then the anesthetic gas the old man had released into her shell overwhelmed her.
My circuits are out of order, Helva mused . . . and then returned to acute awareness.
She saw nothing. She heard nothing. Not so much as a whisper of sound. Not so much as a tiny beam of light.
Helva fought a primeval wave of terror that all but washed her into insanity.
I think, so I live, she told herself with all the force of her will. I can think and I can remember, rationally, calmly, what has happened, what can have happened.
The horror of complete isolation from sound and light was a micrometer away from utter domination of her ego. Coldly, dispassionately, Helva reviewed that final, flashing scene of treachery. The entrance of the four men, the arrangement of the two guards and their whistle-ornaments. A supersonic blast patterned to interfere with her circuitry, to paralyze her defense against the unauthorized activation of her emergency panel. The maneuvering of the third man to overpower Teron.
Now, Helva continued inexorably, this attack was engineered to overcome brawn and brain simultaneously. Only someone intimately connected with the Central Worlds would have access to the information needed to vanquish both mobile and immobile units. The release syllables, and the proper pitch and cadence at which they must be spoken, were highly guarded secrets, usually kept separate. For anyone to have known this information was shocking.
<
br /> Helva’s mind leaped to an obvious, but still startling conclusion. She knew now how the four brain ships had ‘disappeared’. They had unquestionably been shanghaied in much the same way she had been. But why? She wondered. And where were the others? In-communicado like herself? Or driven mad by . . .
I refuse to consider that possibility for myself or any other shell personality, Helva told herself firmly.
Constructive thought, fierce concentration, will relieve the present tedium.
The first ship to disappear was the FT-687. They had also been on a drug run, picking up raw material, though, not distributing it. So had the RD-751 and the PF-699. This line of thought bore possibilities.
The drugs that she had been delivering were available only through application to Central Worlds and were delivered in minute quantities by special teams. A 100cc ampul of Menkalite could poison the water of an entire planet, rendering its population mindless slaves. A granule of the same drug diluted in a massive protein suspension base would inoculate the inhabitants of several star systems against the virulent encephalitis plagues. Tucanite, a psychedelic compound, was invaluable for psychotherapy in catatonic and autistic cases, since it heightened perceptions and awareness of environment. The frail elders of Tucan had revived waning psychic powers with its use. Deadly as these drugs might be in one form, they were essential to millions in another and must be available. The Damoclean sword of use and abuse forever swung perilously over the collective head of mankind.
Not even a shell-person was sacred from the machinations of a disturbed mind.
Disturbed mind? Helva’s thoughts ground down. Where was that idiot brawn of hers right now? Him and his Neanderthal attributes – his muscles would be very useful. She felt a distinct pleasure within herself as she recalled his being clouted wickedly by the third man. She hoped he was bruised, beaten, and bloodied. But at least he could see and hear without mechanical assistance . . .
Helva felt every crevass of her mind quivering with the effects of sense deprivation. How long could she keep her mind channeled away from . . .
Two households, alike in dignity . . .
I attempt from Love’s fever to fly . . .
Fly, I cannot see. Fly?
The quality of mercy is not strained . . .
It droppeth as the gentle rain from . . .
No, not heaven. Portia will do me no good. The Bard has played me false when I have been his sturdy advocate on other shores.
In Injia’s sunny clime where I used to spend my time . . . Time I have too much of or not enough. Could it be that I am suspended midway between time and madness?
There once was a bishop from Chichester
Who made all the saints in their niches stir . . .
I had a niche once only I was moved out, not by a bishop, but a Xixon.
I should sit on a Xixon or fixon a Xixon or Nix on a Xixon or . . .
I cannot move. I cannot see. I cannot hear.
Howlonghowlonghowlong? HOW LONG?
When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one country to dissolve the . . . I’M dissolving.
There is nothing I can think of in all space and time that does not bring me right back to . . .
SOUND.
A scraping metallic sound. But a SOUND upon her aural circuits. Like a hot iron in her brain, a fiery brand of sanity after the dense, thick, solid, infinite inquiet soundlessness. She screamed, but having no connections except the aural, screamed soundlessly.
Something was thundering:
‘I have reconnected your sound system!’
Helva toned the volume rapidly down to an acceptable level. The voice was harsh, whining, nasal, unpleasant, but the sense divinely welcome.
‘You have been disconnected from your ship function.’
The words made no immediate sense. She was listening to the glory of sound and the sensation of noise was unbelievable agony. It took a moment for those syllables to reform themselves into comprehensive tones.
‘You have been connected to a limited audiovisual circuit to permit you to retain your sanity. Any abuse of this courtesy will result in further . . .’ a nasty laugh accompanied the threat, ‘. . . if not permanent, deprivation.’
Unexpectedly sight returned, an evil benison, because of the object in her lens. She could not suppress the scream.
‘This is your idea of cooperation?’ demanded the strident voice and a huge cavern, spiked with great ivory tusks, opened directly in front of her, pink and red and slimy white.
She adjusted vision hastily, putting the face into normal proportions. It was not a pleasant face even at proper size. It belonged to the man, no longer disguised as old, who had styled himself the Antiolathan Xixon.
‘Cooperation?’ Helva asked, confused.
‘Yes, your cooperation or nothing,’ and the Xixon moved his hand to one side of her limited vision, wrapping his fingers around input leads.
‘No. I’ll go mad,’ Helva cried, alarmed, frightened.
‘Mad?’ and her tormentor laughed obscenely. ‘You’ve plenty of company. But you shan’t go mad . . . not yet. I have a use for you.’
A finger dominated her lens like a suspended projectile.
‘No, no, fool, not like that!’ her captor shrieked and dashed off to one side of her screen.
Desperately, assesmbling her wits, Helva tuned up her hearing, sharpened her sight focus. She was facing a small audiovisual amplification panel into which her leads and those of . . . yes . . . she could count 12 other . . . input lines were plugged. She had only one line of vision, straight ahead. Directly in front of her, before the panel, were two shells, trailing fine wires like fairy hair from their blunt tops. Within those shells existed two of her peers. There should be two more. Beside me? She had a peripheral glimpse of more wires. Yes, beside me.
Carefully, she drew against the power in the amplifier. A very limited capacity. To her left, whence the Xixon thing had gone, was the beginning of a complex interstellar communications unit from the look of it and the few dial readings she could see.
Xixon returned, smiling a mocking, smug smile at her.
‘So you are the ship who sings. The Helva obscenity. May I present your fellow obscenities. Of course, Foro’s company is limited to groans and howls. We kept him in the dark too long,’ and the Xixon howled with pure spite. ‘Delia’s not much better, true, but she will speak if spoken to. Tagi and Merl had learned not to talk unless I address them. So shall you. For I have always wanted my own zoo of obscenities and I have them all in you. And you, my latest guest, will cheer my leisure hours with your incomparable voice. Will you not?’
Helva said nothing. She was instantly plunged into utter dark, utter soundlessness.
‘He is mad himself. He is doing this to terrify me. I refuse to be terrified by a madman. I will wait. I will be calm. He has a use for me so he will not wait too long before giving me sight and sound again or he will defeat his purpose. I will wait. I will be calm. I will soon have sight and sound again. I will wait. I will be calm but soon, oh soon . . .
‘There now, my pretty awful, you’ve had time to reconsider my generosity.’
Helva had indeed. She limited her capitulation to a monosyllable. The blessedness of sight and sound could not quite erase the endless hours of deprivation, yet she knew, from the chronometer on the panel board, that he had shut her off for a scant few minutes. It was frightening to be dependent on this vile beast.
She refined her vision, scanning his eyes closely. There was a faint but unmistakable tinge of blue to his skin tone that tagged him as either a native of Rho Puppis’ three habitable worlds or a Tucanite addict. The latter seemed the more likely. Well, she had been carrying Tucanite and she knew the RD had, also.
‘Feel like singing now?’ His laugh was demoniac.
‘Sir?’ said a tentative and servile voice to her left.
The Xixon turned, frowning at the interruption.
‘Well?’
‘None!’ Her captor whirled back to Helva, his eyes blazing. ‘Where did you squander it?’
‘At Tania Australis,’ she replied, purposefully keeping her voice low.
‘Speak up,’ he screamed at her.
‘I’m using all the power you’ve allowed me. That amplifier doesn’t produce much.’
‘It’s not supposed to,’ the Xixon said irritably, his eyes restlessly darting around the room. Suddenly there was his finger obscuring all other objects from her vision. Tell me, which ship is to deliver Mankalite next?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Speak up.’
‘I feel that I am shouting already.’
‘You’re not. You’re whispering.’
‘Is this better?’
‘Well, I can hear you. Now, tell me, which ship is next to deliver Mankalite?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Will you “don’t know” in darkness?’ His laugh echoed hollowly in her skull as he plunged her back into nothingness.
She forced herself to count slowly, second speed, so that she had some reference to time.
He did not keep her out very long. She wanted to scream simply to fill her mind with sound, yet she managed to keep her voice very low.
‘Isn’t it any better?’ he demanded, scowling suspiciously. ‘Took that Foro obscenity off completely.’
Helva steeled herself against the compassion she felt. She comforted herself with the knowledge that Foro had already been mindless.
‘For speech, it is sufficient,’ she said, raising her volume just slightly. She could not use that ploy again for it would cost Merl or Tagi or Delia what fragile grip they had on sanity.
‘Hmmph. Well, now, see that it does.’
He disappeared.
Helva heightened her listening volume. She could hear at least 10 different movement patterns beyond her extremely limited vision. From the reverberations of sound, they were in some large but low-ceilinged natural rock cavern. Now, if the main communications panel, part of which was visible to her, was a standard planetary model, if there were not too many chambers beyond this one to diffuse the sound, and if all the madman’s personnel were nearby, she might just be able to do something.
The Ship Who Sang Page 18