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[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] "Nor am I sure that I want it ... except to smell coffee, which everyone says smells particularly pleasant." "Remember to order some in the morning." "Order's already on file with Commissary," Helva said sweetly. "That's my gal." "I'm not your gal. And, at the risk of being a bore, why are you here, Niall Parollan?" "I don't want to be bothered by those fardling specs," he muttered, jerking a thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the Base Tower, "and I would be if they could reach me. They can't here because Cencom is not allowed to admit any calls to you, Helva XH-834, until 0800 because you, Helva m'gal, have had enough of them for one revolution. Haven't you?" His question crackled in the air. "Don't deny it," he advised when she didn't answer immediately. "I know you well enough ... oh, I know you, gal, like no other man ever has ... and you were so close to telling them to stuff it, you were so close to ..." his voice trailed off briefly. "This assignment was a lot rougher on you than you'll ever admit." She said nothing. He nodded and took another mouthful of soup. "You aren't drunk," she said. "I told you that." He grinned at her. "I hadn't realized," she went on in a light tone to hide the fact that she was deeply touched by his unexpected empathy, "that ship-sitting was a function of a Supervisor." He waggled a lean finger expressively. "We have wide discretionary latitude." "And am I really incommunicado until 0800 or were you merely keeping me from meeting personable brawns?" "Hell no," he explained, his eyebrows arching in protest. "That's absolute fact you can check out. You can call out, you know. It's just no one can call in. And ..." "You're here to divert me from calling the brawns." "That woman's got brawns on the brain!" he exploded. "Go ahead," he urged, "call the brawns in. Rouse the whole barracks. We'll have a swinging party ..." He was halfway to the console. "Why are you here?" "Hey, moderate your voice, gal. I'm here because you're the safest place for me to be." He turned back to her again, grinning wickedly. "Sure you don't want to call the brawn barracks?" "Positive. Why are you escaping?" "Because," and he dropped down onto the couch again, making himself quite comfortable. "I've had it with their nardy questions and suspicions and ..." "Suspicions?" Helva pounced on the word. Niall made a crude noise. "They (and his fingers flicked in the direction of the Tower's lit windows) got fardling damned theories about schizoid brains and blocks and that kind of drift." Page 81 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html "About me?" Again the expressive rude noise. "I know you, gal, and so does Railly and we're taking none of that crap about you" "Thanks." "Don't get snide with me, Helva," and Parollan's voice turned hard. "I'll make you work your ass off for the Service. I'll make you take assignments you don't want because they're good for you and the Service ..." "Good for me? Like the Corvi affair?" "Yes, damn your eyes, good for you, Helva. For the woman inside that armor plate." "I thought you were urging me to come out of my armor plate ... into Kurla's body." Parollan was still. His angry eyes seemed to bore through the column into her shell. Abruptly he relaxed and leaned back again, apparently at ease, but Helva noticed the small contraction of jaw muscles. "Yes, I was, wasn't I?" he said mildly. With a sigh, he swiveled his feet up on the couch and yawned in an exaggerated fashion. "You know, I've never heard you sing. Would you oblige?" "To keep you awake? Or would you prefer a lullaby?" Niall Parollan yawned again, laced his fingers behind his head, crossed his neatly booted ankles and stared up at the ceiling. "Dealer's choice." Surprisingly, Helva felt like singing. The Ship Who Dissembled "Brain ships don't disappear," Helva said in what she hoped was a firm, no-argument tone. Teron stuck his chin out in a way that caused him to appear a neckless Neanderthal. This mannerism had passed from amusing through annoying to unendurable. "You heard Central," Teron replied at his most didactic. "They do disappear, because they have disappeared." "The fact of disappearance is inconsistent with shell psychology," Helva said, barely managing to restrain herself from shouting at top volume. She had the feeling that she might force him to understand by overwhelming him with sound alone. She knew this was basically illogical, but in trying to cope with Teron over the past galactic year, she found she reacted more and more on an emotional rather than a reasonable level. This partnership was clearly intolerable-she would even go so far as to say, degrading, and she would allow it to continue no longer than it took them to finish this assignment and return to Regulus Base. Helva had had enough of Teron. She did not care two feathers in a jet-vent if the conclusion wasn't mutual. It had been difficult for her to admit she had found herself in a situation she couldn't adjust to, but she and Teron were clearly incompatible. She would just have to admit to an error of judgment and correct it. It was the only sensible course of action. Helva groaned inwardly. He was contagious. She was talking more and more as he did. "Your loyalty is commendable, if, in this instance, misplaced," Teron was saying pompously. "The facts are there. Four brain-controlled ships engaged on Central Worlds commissions have disappeared without trace, their accompanying pilots with them. Fact: a ship can alter its tape, a pilot cannot. Fact: the ships have failed to appear at a scheduled port-of-call. Fact: the ships have failed to appear in the adjacent sectors of space nearest their previous or projected ports-of-call. Therefore, they have disappeared. The ships must have altered the projected journey for no known reason. Therefore the ships are unreliable organisms. This conclusion follows the Page 82 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html presented data and is unalterable. Any rational intelligence must admit the validity of that conclusion." He gave her that irritating smirk she had originally thought a sweet smile. Helva counted slowly to 1,000 by 10s. When she spoke again, her voice was under perfect control. "The presented data is incomplete. It lacks motivation. There is no reason for those four ships to have disappeared for their own purposes. They weren't even badly indebted. Indeed, the DR was within 3 standard years of solvency.' Just as I am, she thought. "Therefore, and on the basis of privileged information available to me ..." she came as close as makes no never mind to spitting out the pronoun, "your conclusion is unacceptable." "I cannot see what privileged information, if you actually have any," [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] |