The Ship Who Sang Read online

  ‘My good woman,’ Tanner protested.

  ‘Sound your “A”,’ laughed Jennan.

  Into the stunned silence that followed the rich, clear, high ‘A,’ Jennan remarked quietly, ‘Such an A Caruso would have given the rest of his notes to sing.’

  It did not take them long to discover her full range.

  ‘All Tanner asked for was one roaring good lead tenor,’ Jennan said jokingly, ‘and our sweet mistress supplied us an entire repertory company. The boy who gets this ship will go far, far, far.’

  ‘To the Horsehead Nebula?’ asked Nordsen, quoting an old Central saw.

  ‘To the Horsehead Nebula and back, we shall make beautiful music,’ said Helva, chuckling.

  ‘Together,’ Jennan said. ‘Only you’d better make the music and, with my voice, I’d better listen.’

  ‘I rather imagined it would be I who listened,’ suggested Helva.

  Jennan executed a stately bow with an intricate flourish of his crush-brimmed hat. He directed his bow toward the central control pillar where Helva was. Her own personal preference crystallized at that precise moment and for that particular reason: Jennan, alone of the men, had addressed his remarks directly at her physical presence, regardless of the fact that he knew she could pick up his image wherever he was in the ship and regardless of the fact that her body was behind massive metal walls. Throughout their partnership, Jennan never failed to turn his head in her direction no matter where he was in relation to her. In response to this personalization, Helva at that moment and from then on always spoke to Jennan only through her central mike, even though that was not always the most efficient method.

  Helva didn’t know that she fell in love with Jennan that evening. As she had never been exposed to love or affection, only the drier cousins, respect and admiration, she could scarcely have recognized her reaction to the warmth of his personality, and thoughtfulness. As a shell-person, she considered herself remote from emotions largely connected with physical desires.

  ‘Well Helva, it’s been swell meeting you,’ said Tanner suddenly as she and Jennan were arguing about the baroque quality of ‘Come All Ye Sons of Art.’ ‘See you in space some time, you lucky dog, Jennan. Thanks for the party, Helva.’

  ‘You don’t have to go so soon?’ asked Helva, realizing belatedly that she and Jennan had been excluding the others from this discussion.

  ‘Best man won,’ Tanner said, wryly. ‘Guess I’d better go get a tape on love ditties. Might need ’em for the next ship, if there’re any more at home like you.’

  Helva and Jennan watched them leave, both a little confused.

  ‘Perhaps Tanner’s jumping to conclusions?’ Jennan asked.

  Helva regarded him as he slouched against the console, facing her shell directly. His arms were crossed on his chest and the glass he held had been empty for some time. He was handsome, they all were; but his watchful eyes were unwary, his mouth assumed a smile easily, his voice (to which Helva was particularly drawn) was resonant, deep, and without unpleasant overtones or accent.

  ‘Sleep on it, at any rate, Helva. Call me in the morning if it’s your opt.’

  She called him at breakfast, after she had checked her choice through Central. Jennan moved his things aboard, received their joint commission, had his personality and experience file locked into her reviewer, gave her the coordinates of their first mission. The XH-834 officially became the JH-834.

  Their first mission was a dull but necessary crash priority (Medical got Helva) rushing a vaccine to a distant system plagued with a virulent spore disease. They had only to get to Spica as fast as possible.

  After the initial thrilling forward surge at her maximum speed, Helva realized her muscles were to be given less of a workout than her brawn on this tedious mission. But they did have plenty of time for exploring each other’s personalities. Jennan, of course, knew what Helva was capable of as a ship and partner, just as she knew what she could expect from him. But these were only facts and Helva looked forward eagerly to learning that human side of her partner which could not be reduced to a series of symbols. Nor could the give and take of two personalities be learned from a book. It had to be experienced.

  ‘My father was a scout, too, or is that programmed?’ began Jennan their third day out.

  ‘Naturally.’

  ‘Unfair, you know. You’ve got all my family history and I don’t know one blamed thing about yours.’

  ‘I’ve never known either,’ Helva said. ‘Until I read yours, it hadn’t occurred to me I must have one, too, someplace in Central’s files.’

  Jennan snorted. ‘Shell psychology!’

  Helva laughed. ‘Yes, and I’m even programmed against curiosity about it. You’d better be, too.’

  Jennan ordered a drink, slouched into the gravity couch opposite her, put his feet on the bumpers, turning himself idly from side to side on the gimbals.

  ‘Helva – a made-up name . . .’

  ‘With a Scandinavian sound.’

  ‘You aren’t blonde,’ Jennan said positively.

  ‘Well, then, there’re dark Swedes.’

  ‘And blonde Turks and this one’s harem is limited to one.’

  ‘Your woman in purdah, yes, but you can comb the pleasure houses—’ Helva found herself aghast at the edge to her carefully trained voice.

  ‘You know,’ Jennan interrupted her, deep in some thought of his own, ‘my father gave me the impression he was a lot more married to his ship, the Silvia, than to my mother. I know I used to think Silvia was my grandmother. She was a low number so she must have been a great-great-grandmother at least. I used to talk to her for hours.’

  ‘Her registry?’ asked Helva, unwittingly jealous of everyone who had shared his hours.

  ‘422. I think she’s TS now. I ran into Tom Burgess once.’

  Jennan’s father had died of a planetary disease, the vaccine for which his ship had used up in curing the local citizens.

  ‘Tom said she’d got mighty tough and salty. You lose your sweetness and I’ll come back and haunt you, girl,’ Jennan threatened.

  Helva laughed. He startled her by stamping up to the column panel, touching it with light, tender fingers.

  ‘I wonder what you look like,’ he said softly, wistfully.

  Helva had been briefed about this natural curiosity of scouts. She didn’t know anything about herself and neither of them ever would or could.

  ‘Pick any form, shape, and shade and I’ll be yours obliging,’ she countered, as training suggested.

  ‘Iron Maiden, I fancy blondes with long tresses,’ and Jennan pantomimed Lady Godiva-like tresses. ‘Since you’re immolated in titanium, I’ll call you Brunehilde my dear,’ and he made his bow.

  With a chortle, Helva launched into the appropriate aria just as Spica made contact.

  ‘What’n’ell’s that yelling about? Who are you? And unless you’re Central Worlds Medical go away. We’ve got a plague. No visiting privileges.’

  ‘My ship is singing, we’re the JH-834 of Worlds and we’ve got your vaccine. What are our landing coordinates?’

  ‘Your ship is singing?’

  ‘The greatest SATB in organized space. Any request?’

  The JH-834 delivered the vaccine but no more arias and received immediate orders to proceed to Leviticus IV. By the time they got there, Jennan found a reputation awaiting him and was forced to defend the 834’s virgin honor.

  ‘I’ll stop singing,’ murmured Helva contritely as she ordered up poultices for his third black eye in a week.

  ‘You will not,’ Jennan said through gritted teeth. ‘If I have to black eyes from here to the Horsehead to keep the snicker out of the title, we’ll be the ship who sings.’

  After the ‘ship who sings’ tangled with a minor but vicious narcotic ring in the Lesser Magellanics, the title became definitely respectful. Central was aware of each episode and punched out a ‘special interest’ key on JH-834’s file. A first-rate team was shaking down well
.

  Jennan and Helva considered themselves a first-rate team, too, after their tidy arrest.

  ‘Of all the vices in the universe, I hate drug addiction,’ Jennan remarked as they headed back to Central Base. ‘People can go to hell quick enough without that kind of help.’

  ‘Is that why you volunteered for Scout Service? To redirect traffic?’

  ‘I’ll bet my official answer’s on your review.’

  ‘In far too flowery wording. “Carrying on the traditions of my family, which has been proud of four generations in Service,” if I may quote your own words.’

  Jennan groaned. ‘I was very young when I wrote that. I certainly hadn’t been through Final Training. And once I was in Final Training, my pride wouldn’t let me fail . . .

  ‘As I mentioned, I used to visit Dad on board the Silvia and I’ve a very good idea she might have had her eye on me as a replacement for my father because I had had massive doses of scout-oriented propaganda. It took. From the time I was 7, I was going to be a scout or else.’ He shrugged as if deprecating a youthful determination that had taken a great deal of mature application to bring to fruition.

  ‘Ah, so? Scout Sahir Silan on the JS-422 penetrating into the Horsehead Nebulae?’

  Jennan chose to ignore her sarcasm.

  ‘With you, I may even get that far. But even with Silvia’s nudging I never day-dreamed myself that kind of glory in my wildest flights of fancy. I’ll leave the whoppers to your agile brain henceforth. I have in mind a smaller contribution to space history.’

  ‘So modest?’

  ‘No. Practical. We also serve, et cetera.’ He placed a dramatic hand on his heart.

  ‘Glory hound!’ scoffed Helva.

  ‘Look who’s talking, my Nebula-bound friend. At least I’m not greedy. There’ll only be one hero like my dad at Parsaea, but I would like to be remembered for some kudo. Everyone does. Why else do or die?’

  ‘Your father died on his way back from Parsaea, if I may point out a few cogent facts. So he could never have known he was a hero for damning the flood with his ship. Which kept the Parsaean colony from being abandoned. Which gave them a chance to discover the antiparalytic qualities of Parsaea. Which he never knew.’

  ‘I know,’ said Jennan softly.

  Helva was immediately sorry for the tone of her rebuttal. She knew very well how deep Jennan’s attachment to his father had been. On his review a note was made that he had rationalized his father’s loss with the unexpected and welcome outcome of the Affair at Parsaea.

  ‘Facts are not human, Helva. My father was and so am I. And basically, so are you. Check over your dial, 834. Amid all the wires attached to you is a heart, an underdeveloped human heart. Obviously!’

  ‘I apologize, Jennan,’ she said.

  Jennan hesitated a moment, threw out his hands in acceptance and then tapped her shell affectionately.

  ‘If they ever take us off the milkruns, we’ll make a stab at the Nebula, huh?’

  As so frequently happened in the Scout Service, within the next hour they had orders to change course, not to the Nebula, but to a recently colonized system with two habitable planets, one tropical, one glacial. The sun, named Ravel, had become unstable; the spectrum was that of a rapidly expanding shell, with absorption lines rapidly displacing toward violet. The augmented heat of the primary had already forced evacuation of the nearer world, Daphnis. The pattern of spectral emissions gave indication that the sun would sear Chloe as well. All ships in the immediate spatial vicinity were to report to Disaster Headquarters on Chloe to effect removal of the remaining colonists.

  The JH-834 obediently presented itself and was sent to outlying areas on Chloe to pick up scattered settlers who did not appear to appreciate the urgency of the situation. Chloe, indeed, was enjoying the first temperatures above freezing since it had been flung out of its parent. Since many of the colonists were religious fanatics who had settled on rigorous Chloe to fit themselves for a life of pious reflection, Chloe’s abrupt thaw was attributed to sources other than a rampaging sun.

  Jennan had to spend so much time countering specious arguments that he and Helva were behind schedule on their way to the fourth and last settlement.

  Helva jumped over the high range of jagged peaks that surrounded and sheltered the valley from the former raging snows as well as the present heat. The violent sun with its flaring corona was just beginning to brighten the deep valley as Helva dropped down to a landing.

  ‘They’d better grab their toothbrushes and hop aboard,’ Helva said. ‘HQ says speed it up.’

  ‘All women,’ remarked Jennan in surprise as he walked down to meet them. ‘Unless the men on Chloe wear furred skirts.’

  ‘Charm ’em but pare the routine to the bare essentials. And turn on your two-way private.’

  Jennan advanced smiling, but his explanation of his mission was met with absolute incredulity and considerable doubt as to his authenticity. He groaned inwardly as the matriarch paraphrased previous explanations of the warming sun.

  ‘Reverend mother, there’s been an overload on that prayer circuit and the sun is blowing itself up in one obliging burst. I’m here to take you to the spaceport at Rosary—’

  ‘That Sodom?’ The worthy woman glowered and shuddered disdainfully at his suggestion. ‘We thank you for your warning but we have no wish to leave our cloister for the rude world. We must go about our morning meditation which has been interrupted—’

  ‘It’ll be permanently interrupted when that sun starts broiling you. You must come now,’ Jennan said firmly.

  ‘Madame,’ said Helva, realizing that perhaps a female voice might carry more weight in this instance than Jennan’s very masculine charm.

  ‘Who spoke?’ cried the nun, startled by the bodiless voice.

  ‘I, Helva, the ship. Under my protection you and your sisters-in-faith may enter safely and be unprofaned by association with a male. I will guard you and take you safely to a place prepared for you.’

  The matriarch peered cautiously into the ship’s open port.

  ‘Since only Central Worlds is permitted the use of such ships, I acknowledge that you are not trifling with us, young man. However, we are in no danger here.’

  ‘The temperature at Rosary is now 99º,’ said Helva. ‘As soon as the sun’s rays penetrate directly into this valley, it will also be 99º, and it is due to climb to approximately 180º today. I notice your buildings are made of wood with moss chinking. Dry moss. It should fire around noontime.’

  The sunlight was beginning to slant into the valley through the peaks and the fierce rays warmed the restless group behind the matriarch. Several opened the throats of their furry parkas.

  ‘Jennan,’ said Helva privately to him, ‘our time is very short.’

  ‘I can’t leave them, Helva. Some of those girls are barely out of their teens.’

  ‘Pretty, too. No wonder the matriarch doesn’t want to get in.’

  ‘Helva.’

  ‘It will be the Lord’s will,’ said the matriarch stoutly and turned her back squarly on rescue.

  ‘To burn to death?’ shouted Jennan as he threaded his way through her murmuring disciples.

  ‘They want to be martyrs? Their opt, Jennan,’ said Helva dispassionately, ‘we must leave and that is no longer a matter of option.’

  ‘How can I leave, Helva?’

  ‘Parsaea?’ Helva asked tauntingly as he stepped forward to grab one of the women. ‘You can’t drag them all aboard and we don’t have time to fight it out. Get on board, Jennan, or I’ll have you on report.’

  ‘They’ll die,’ muttered Jennan dejectedly as he reluctantly turned to climb on board.

  ‘You can risk only so much,’ Helva said sympathetically. ‘As it is we’ll just have time to make a rendezvous. Lab reports a critical speedup in spectral evolution.’

  Jennan was already in the airlock when one of the younger women, screaming, rushed to squeeze in the closing port. Her action set off the ot
hers. They stampeded through the narrow-opening. Even crammed back to breast, there was not enough room inside for all the women. Jennan brought out spacesuits to the three who would have to remain with him in the airlock. He wasted valuable time explaining to the matriarch that she must put on the suit because the airlock had no independent oxygen or cooling units.

  ‘We’ll be caught,’ said Helva in a grim tone to Jennan on their private connection. ‘We’ve lost 18 minutes in this last-minute rush. I am now overloaded for maximum speed and I must attain maximum speed to outrun the heat wave.’

  ‘Can you lift? We’re suited.’

  ‘Lift? Yes,’ she said, doing so. ‘Run? I stagger.’

  Jennan, bracing himself and the women, could feel her sluggishness as she blasted upward. Heartlessly, Helva applied thrust as long as she could, despite the fact that the gravitational force mashed her cabin passengers brutally and crushed two fatally. It was a question of saving as many as possible. The only one for whom she had any concern was Jennan and she was in desperate terror about his safety. Airless and uncooled, protected by only one layer of metal, not three, the airlock was not going to be safe for the four trapped there, despite their spacesuits. These were only the standard models, not built to withstand the excessive heat to which the ship would be subjected.

  Helva ran as fast as she could but the incredible wave of heat from the explosive sun caught them halfway to cold safety.

  She paid no heed to the cries, moans, pleas, and prayers in her cabin. She listened only to Jennan’s tortured breathing, to the missing throb in his suit’s purifying system and the sucking of the overloaded cooling unit. Helpless, she heard the hysterical screams of his three companions as they writhed in the awful heat. Vainly, Jennan tried to calm them, tried to explain they would soon be safe and cool if they could be still and endure the heat. Undisciplined by their terror and torment, they tried to strike out at him despite the close quarters. One flailing arm became entangled in the leads to his power pack and the damage was quickly done. A connection, weakened by heat and the dead weight of the arm, broke.

  For all the power at her disposal, Helva was helpless. She watched as Jennan fought for his breath, as he turned his head beseechingly toward her, and died.