Partnership

Anne McCaffrey

To ordinary human ears the slight crackle of the speaker being activated would have been almost inaudible. To Nancia, all her sensors fine-tuned for this signal, it sounded like a trumpet call Newly graduated and commissioned, ready for service — and apprehensive that she would not be able to live up to her family's high Service traditions—she'd had little to do but wait.

He's coming aboaifl now, she thought in the split second of waiting for the incoming call And then, as the unmis-takable gravelly voice of CenCom's third-shift operator rasped across her sensors, disappointment flooded her synapses and left her dull and heavy on the launching pad. She'd been so sure that Daddy would find time to visit her, even if he hadn't been able to attend the formal graduation of her class from Laboratory Schools.

"XN-935, how soon can you be ready to lift?"

"I completed my test flight patterns yesterday,"

Nancia replied. She was careful to keep her voice level, monitoring each output band to make sure that no hint of her disappointment showed in the upper frequencies. CenCom could perfectly well have communicated with her directly, via the electronic network that linked Nancia's ship computers with all other computers in this subspace — and via the surgically installed synaptic connectors that linked Nancia's physical body, safe behind its titanium shell, with the ship's computer — but it was a point of etiquette among most of the operators to address brainships just as they would any other human being. It would have been rude to send only electronic instructions, as if the 2

Anne McCaffrey &? Margaret Ball

brainships were no more human than the Al-control-led drones carrying the bulk of Central Worlds'

regular traffic.

Or so the operators claimed. Nancia privately thought that their insistence on voice-controlled traffic was merely a way to avoid the embarrassing comparison between their sense-limited communication system and a brainship's capabilities of multi-channel communication and instantaneous response.

In any case, it was equally a point of pride among shellpersons to demonstrate the control over their

"voices" and all other external comm devices that Helva had shown to be possible, nearly two hundred years ago.

Nancia knew herself to lack the fine sense of musical timing and emphasis that had made Helva famous throughout the galaxy as "The Ship Who Sang," but this much, at least, she could do; she could conceal her disappointment at hearing CenCom instead of a direct transmission from Daddy to congratulate her on her commissioning, and she could maintain a perfectly professional facade throughout the ensuing discussion of supplies and loading and singularity points.

"Il?s a short flight," CenCom told her, and then paused for a moment "Short for you, that is. By normal FTL drive, Nyota ya Jaha is at the far end of the galaxy. Fortunately, there's a singularity point a week from Central that wifl flip you intolocal space."

"I do have full access to my charts of known decomposition spaces," Nancia reminded CenCom, allowing a tinge of impatience to color her voice.

"Yes, and you can read them in simulated 4-D, can't you, you lucky stiff!" CenCom's voice showed only cheerful resignation at the limitations of a body that forced him to page through bulky books of graphs and charts to verify the mapping Nancia had already created as an internal display: a sequence of three-dimensional spaces collapsing and contorting about PARTNERSHIP 3

the singularity point where local subspace could be defined as intersecting with the subspace sector of Nyota ya Jaha. At that point Nancia would be able to create a rapid physical decomposition and restructur-ing of the local spaces, projecting herself and her passengers from one subspace to the other. Decomposition space theory allowed brainships like Nancia, or a very few expensive AI drones equipped with metachip processors, to condense the major part of a long journey into the few seconds they spent in Singularity. Less fortunate ships, lacking the metachips or dependent upon the slow responses of a human pilot who lacked Nancia's direct synaptic connections to the computer, still had to go through long weeks or even months of conventional FTL travel to cover the same distance; the massive parallel computations required in Singularity were difficult even for a brainship and impossible for most conventional ships.

"Tell me about the passengers," Nancia requested.

When they came aboard, presumably one of her passengers would have the datahedron from Central specifying her destination and instructions, but who knew how much longer she would have to wait before the passengers boarded? She hadn't even been invited to choose a brawn yet; that would surely take a day or two. Besides, picking CenCom's brains for information on her assignment was better than waiting in tense expectation of her family's visit They would certainly come to see her off . . . wouldn't they? All through her schooling she had received regular visits from one family member or another — mostly from her fether, who made a point of how much time he was taking from his busy schedule to visit her. But Jinevra and Flix, her sister and brother, had come too, now and then; Jinevra less often, as college and her new career in Planetary Aid administration took up more and more of her time.

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Anne McCaffrey & Margaret Ball

None of them had attended Nantia's formal graduation, though; no one from the entire, far-flung, wealthy House of Perez y De Gras had been there to hear the lengthy list ofhonors and awards and prizes she'd gained in the final, grading year ofher training as a brainship.

/(wasn't enough, Nancia thought. / was only third in my class. If rd placed first, iffd won the Daleth Prize.... No good would come of brooding over the past She knew that Jinevra and Flix had grown up and had their own lives to lead, that Daddy's crowded schedule of business and diplomatic meetings didn't leave him much time for minor matters like school events. It really wasn't important that he hadn't come to see her graduate. He would surely make time for a personal visit before liftoff; that was what really counted. And when he did come, he should find her happy and busy and engaged in the work for which she had trained.

"About the passengers?" she reminded CenCom.

"Oh, you probably know more about them than I do,"

the CenCom operator said with a laugh. "Tney're more your sort of people than mine. High Families," he clarified. "New graduates, I gather, off to their first jobs."

That was nice, anyway. Nancia had been feeling just a bit apprehensive at the thought of having to deal with some experienced, high-ranking diplomatic or military passengers on her first flight It would be pleasant to carry a group of young people just like her — well, not just like her, Nancia corrected with a trace of internal amusement. They would be a few years older, maybe nineteen or twenty to her sixteen; everybody knew that softpersons suffered from so many hormonal changes and sensory distractions that their schooling took several years longer to complete. And they would be softpersons, with limited sensory and processing capability. Still, they'd all be heading off to start their careers together; that was a significant bond.

She absently recorded CenCom's continuing in-PARTNERSHIP 5

strucu'ons while she mused on the pleasant trip ahead.

"Nyota ya Jaha's a long way off by FTL," he told her unnecessarily. "I expect somebody pulled some strings to get them a Courier Service ship. But it happens to be convenient for us too, being in die same subspace as Vega, so that's all right"

Nancia vaguely remembered something about Vega subspace in die news. Computer malfunctions... why would that make the newsbeams? There must have been something important about it, but she'd received only the first bits of the newsbyte before a teacher canceled the beam, saying something severe about the inadvisability of listening to upsetting newsbytes and the danger of getting the younger shellpeople upset over nothing. Oh, well, Nancia thought, now that she was her own ship she could scan the beams for herself and pick up whatever it had been about Vega later. For now, she was more interested in finding out what CenCom knew about her newly assigned passengers.

"Overton-Glaxely, del Parma y Polo, Armontillado-Perez y Medoc, de Gras-Waldheim, Hezra-Fong,"

CenCom read off the list of illustrious High Family names. "See what I mean?"

"Umm, yes," Nancia said. "We're a cadet branch of Armontillado-Perez y Medoc, and the de Gras-Waldheims come in somewhere on my mother's side.

But you forget, CenCom, I didn't exactly grow up in those circles myself."

"Yes, well, your visitor will probably be able to give you all the latest gossip," CenCom said cheerfully.

"Visitor!" Of course he came to see me off. I never doubted it for an instant.

"Request just came in while I was looking up the passenger list. Sorry, I forgot to route it to you. Name of Perez y de Gras. Being a family member, they told him to go right on out to the field. He'll be at the launching pad in a minute."

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Arme McCaffrey fc? Margaret Ball

Nancia activated her outside sensors and realized that it was almost night... not that the darkness made any difference Co her, but her infrared sensors picked up only the outline of a human form approaching the ship; she couldn't see Daddy's face at all. And it would be rude to turn on a spotlight. Oh, well, he'd be there any minute. She opened her lower doors in silent welcome.

CenCom's voice was an irritation now, not a welcome distraction. "XN? I asked if you can lift off within two hours. Your provision list is more than adequate for a short voyage, and these pampered brats are kvetching about having to wait around on base."

"Two hours?" Nancia repeated. That wouldn't give her much time for a visit — well, be realistic; it was probably more time than Daddy could spare. But there were other problems with leaving so soon. "Are you out of your mind? I haven't even picked a brawn yet!" She intended to get to know the available brawns over the next few days before choosing a partner. "Hie selection process was not something to be rushed through, and she certainly didn't want to waste the precious minutes of Daddy's visit choosing a brawn!

"Don't you young ships ever catch the newsbeams? I told you Vega. Remember what happened to the CR-899? Her brawn's stranded on his home planet —

Vega 3.3."

"What a dreary way to name their planets," Nancia commented. "Can't they think of any nice names?"

"Vegans are ... very logical," CenCom said. "The original group of settlers were, anyway — the ones who went out by slowship, before FTL. I gather the culture evolved to an extremely rigid form during the generations born on shipboard. They don't make a lot of allowances for human frailty, litde things like names being easier to remember than strings of numbers."

"Makes no difference to me" Nancia said smugly.

PARTNERSHIP 7

Her memory banks could encode and store any form of information she needed.

"You should get along just great with the Vegans,"

CenCom told her. "Anyway, this brawn is out in Vegan subspace, no ship, nothing in the vicinity but a couple of old FTL drones. OG Shipping ought to be able to divert their metachip drone from Nyota, but as usual, we can't contact the manager. So it's either waste months of Caleb's service term by sending him home FTL, or provide our own transport. You're it. You can drop off your friends and relations on the planets around Nyota ya Jaha — I'll transmit a databurst of your orders after we get through chatting — and then proceed to Vega 3.3 to pick up your first brawn. Very neat organization. Psych records suggest the two of you ought to make a great team."

"Oh, they do, do they?" said Nancia. She had her own opinion of the Psych branch of Central and the intrusive tests and questionnaires with which they bombarded shellpersons, and she had no intention of being hustled by Central into forgoing her right to choose a brawn just because some shelltapper in a white coat thought they knew how to pick a man for her—and because she was a convenient free ride for a brawn who'd already lost one ship. Nancia was about to turn up her beam to CenCom and favor the operator with a few choice words on the subject when she felt her visitor stepping aboard. Well, there'd be time for that argument later; she could think about it on the way out. Agreeing to transport the CR-899's stranded brawn back to Central wouldn't commit her to a permanent partnership, and when she returned from this voyage she'd have plenty of time to choose her next brawn.., and to tell Psych what they could do with their personality profiles.

Meanwhile, her visitor had ignored the open lift doors in favor of climbing the stairs to the central cabin, taking the last steps two at a time; Daddy made a point of keep-8

Anne McCaffrey &? Margaret Ball

ing in shape. Nancia activated her stairway sensors and speakers simultaneously.

"Daddy, how nice of you — "

But the visitor was Flix, not Daddy. At least, from what Nancia could see of his face behind the enormous basket of flowers and fruit, she assumed it was her little brother: spiky red hair in an old-fashioned punk crown, one long peacock's feather dangling from the right earlobe, fingertips callused from hours of synthcom play. It was her little brother, all right.