Brain Ships Read online

  "Okay," she replied, faintly. "Uh, can I be alone for a while, please?"

  "Sure." She stopped pretending to fuss with equipment and nodded shortly at the holo-screen. Kenny brought up one hand to wave at her, and the screen blinked out. Anna left through what Tia now realized was a decontam-airlock a moment later. Leaving her alone with the hissing, humming equipment, and Ted.

  She swallowed a lump in her throat and thought very hard about what they'd told her.

  She wasn't getting any better, she was getting worse. They didn't know what was wrong. That was on the negative side. On the plus side, there was nothing wrong with Mum and Dad, and they hadn't said to give up all hope.

  Therefore, she should continue to assume that they would find a cure.

  She cleared her throat. "Hello?" she said.

  As she had thought, there was an AI monitoring the room.

  "Hello," it replied, in the curiously accentless voice only an AI could produce. "What is your need?"

  "I'd like to watch a holo. History," she said, after a moment of thought. "There's a holo about Queen Hatshepsut of Egypt. It's called Phoenix of Ra, I think. Have you got that?"

  That had been on the forbidden list at home; Tia knew why. There had been some pretty steamy scenes with the Pharaoh and her architect in there. Tia was fascinated by the only female to declare herself Pharaoh, however, and had been decidedly annoyed when a little sex kept her from viewing this one.

  "Yes, I have access to that," the AI said after a moment. "Would you like to view it now?"

  So they hadn't put any restrictions on her viewing privileges! "Yes," she replied; then, eager to strike while she had the chance, "And after that, I'd like to see the Aten trilogy, about Ahnkenaten and the heretics—that's Aten Rising, Aten at Zenith, and Aten Descending."

  Those had more than a few steamy scenes; she'd overheard her mother saying that some of the theories that had been dramatized fairly explicitly in the trilogy, while they made comprehensible some otherwise inexplicable findings, would get the holos banned in some cultures. And Braddon had chuckled and replied that the costumes alone—or lack of them—while completely accurate, would do the same. Still—Tia figured she could handle it. And if it was that bad, it would certainly help keep her mind off her own troubles!

  "Very well," the AI said agreeably. "Shall I begin?"

  "Yes," she told it, with another caress of her cheek on Ted's soft fur. "Please."

  * * *

  Pota and Braddon watched their daughter with frozen faces, faces that Tia was convinced covered a complete welter of emotions that they didn't want her to see. She took a deep breath, enunciated "Chair forward, five feet," and her Moto-Chair glided forward and stopped before it touched them.

  "Well, now I can get around at least," she said, with what she hoped sounded like cheer. "I was getting awfully tired of the same four walls!"

  Whatever it was that she had—and now she heard the words "proto-virus" and "dystrophic sclerosis" bandied about more often than not—the medics had decided it wasn't contagious. They'd let Pota and Braddon out of isolation, and they'd moved Tia to another room, one that had a door right onto the corridor. Not that it made much difference, except that Anna didn't have to use a decontam airlock and pressure-suit anymore. And now Kenny came to see her in person. But four white walls were still four white walls, and there wasn't much variation in rooms.

  Still—she was afraid to ask for things to personalize the room. Afraid that if she made it more her own—she'd be stuck in it. Forever.

  Her numbness and paralysis extended to most of her body now, except for her facial muscles. And there it stopped. Just as inexplicably as it had begun.

  They'd put her in the quadriplegic version of the Moto-Chair; just like Kenny's except that she controlled hers with a few commands and series of tongue-switches and eye movements. A command sent it forward, and the direction she looked would tell it where to go. And hers had mechanical "arms" that followed set patterns programmed in to respond to more commands. Any command had to be prefaced by "chair" or "arm." A clumsy system, but it was the best they could do without direct synaptic connections from the brainstem, like those of a shellperson.

  Her brainstem was still intact, anyway. Whatever it was had gotten her spine, but not that.

  Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, she thought with bitter irony, how was the play?

  "What do you think, pumpkin?" Braddon asked, his voice quivering only a little.

  "Hey, this is stellar, Dad," she replied cheerfully. "It's just like piloting a ship! I think I'll challenge Doctor Kenny to a race!"

  Pota swallowed very hard and managed a tremulous smile. "It won't be for too long," she said without conviction. "As soon as they find out what's set up housekeeping in there, they'll have you better in no time."

  She bit her lip to keep from snapping back and dug up a fatuous grin from somewhere. The likelihood of finding a cure diminished more with every day, and she knew it. Neither Anna nor Kenny made any attempt to hide that from her.

  But there was no point in making her parents unhappy. They already felt bad enough.

  She tried out all the points of the chair for them, until not even they could stand it anymore. They left, making excuses and promising to come back—and they were succeeded immediately by a stream of interns and neurological specialists, each of whom had more variations on the same basic questions she had answered a thousand times, each of whom had his own pet theory about what was wrong.

  "First my toes felt like they were asleep when I woke up one morning, but it wore off. Then it didn't wear off. Then instead of waking up with tingles, I woke up numb. No, sir, it never actually hurt. No, ma'am, it only went as far as my heel at first. Yes, sir, then after two days my fingers started. No ma'am, just the fingers not the whole hand. . . ."

  Hours of it. But she knew that they weren't being nasty, they were trying to help her, and being able to help her depended on how cooperative she was.

  But their questions didn't stop the questions of her own. So far it was just sensory nerves and voluntary muscles and nerves. What if it went to the involuntary ones, and she woke up unable to breathe? What then? What if she lost control of her facial muscles? Every little tingle made her break out in a sweat of panic, thinking it was going to happen. . . .

  Nobody had answers for any questions. Not hers, and not theirs.

  Finally, just before dinner, they went away. After about a half an hour, she mastered control of the arms enough to feed herself, saving herself the humiliation of having to call a nurse to do it. And the chair's own plumbing solved the humiliation of the natural result of eating and drinking. . . .

  After supper, when the tray was taken away, she was left in the growing darkness of the room, quite alone. She would have slumped, if she could have. It was just as well that Pota and Braddon hadn't returned; having them there was a strain. It was harder to be brave in front of them than it was in front of strangers.

  "Chair, turn seventy degrees right," she ordered. "Left arm, pick up bear."

  With a soft whir, the chair obeyed her.

  "Left arm, put bear—cancel. Left arm, bring bear to left of face." The arm moved a little. "Closer. Closer. Hold."

  Now she cuddled Ted against her cheek, and she could pretend that it was her own arm holding him there.

  With no one there to see, slow, hot tears formed in her eyes and trickled down her cheeks. She leaned her head to the left a little, so that they would soak into Ted's soft blue fur and not betray her.

  "It's not fair," she whispered to Ted, who seemed to nod with sad agreement as she rubbed her cheek against him. "It's not fair. . . ."

  I wanted to find the EsKay homeworld. I wanted to go out with Mum and Dad and be the one to find the homeworld. I wanted to write books. I wanted to stand up in front of people and make them laugh and get excited, and see how history and archeology aren't dead, they're just asleep. I wanted to do things they make holos out of. I wanted—
I wanted—

  I wanted to see things! I wanted to drive grav-sleds and swim in a real lagoon and feel a storm and—

  —and I wanted—

  Some of the scenes from the holos she'd been watching came back with force now, and memories of Pota and Braddon, when they thought she was engrossed in a book or a holo, giggling and cuddling like tweenies. . . .

  I wanted to find out about boys. Boys and kisses and—

  And now nobody's ever going to look at me and see me. All they're going to see is this big metal thing. That's all they see now. . . .

  Even if a boy ever wanted to kiss me, he'd have to get past a half ton of machinery, and it would probably bleep an alarm.

  The tears poured faster now, with the darkness of the room to hide them.

  They wouldn't have put me in this thing if they thought I was going to get better. I'm never going to get better. I'm only going to get worse. I can't feel anything, I'm nothing but a head in a machine. And if I get worse, will I go deaf? Blind?

  "Teddy, what's going to happen to me?" she sobbed. "Am I going to spend the rest of my life in a room?"

  Ted didn't know, any more than she did.

  "It's not fair, it's not fair, I never did anything," she wept, as Ted watched her tears with round, sad eyes, and soaked them up for her. "It's not fair. I wasn't finished. I hadn't even started yet. . . ."

  * * *

  Kenny grabbed a tissue with one hand and snapped off the camera-relay with the other. He scrubbed fiercely at his eyes and blew his nose with a combination of anger and grief. Anger, at his own impotence. Grief, for the vulnerable little girl alone in that cold, impersonal hospital room, a little girl who was doing her damnedest to put a brave face on everything.

  In public. He was the only one to watch her in private, like this, when she thought there was no one to see that her whole pose of cheer was nothing more than a facade.

  "I wasn't finished. I wasn't even started yet."

  "Damn it," he swore, scrubbing at his eyes again and pounding the arm of his chair. "Damn it anyway!" What careless god had caused her to choose the very words he had used, fifteen years ago?

  Fifteen years ago, when a stupid accident had left him paralyzed from the waist down and put an end—he thought—to his dreams for med school?

  Fifteen years ago, when Doctor Harwat Kline-Bes was his doctor and had heard him weeping alone into his pillow?

  He turned his chair and opened the viewport out into the stars, staring at them as they moved past in a panorama of perfect beauty that changed with the rotation of the station. He let the tears dry on his cheeks, let his mind empty.

  Fifteen years ago, another neurologist had heard those stammered, heartbroken words, and had determined that they would not become a truth. He had taken a paraplegic young student, bullied the makers of an experimental Moto-Chair into giving the youngster one—then bullied the dean of the Meyasor State Medical College into admitting the boy. Then he had seen to it that once the boy graduated, he got an internship in this very hospital—a place where a neurologist in a Moto-Chair was no great curiosity, not with the sentients of a hundred worlds coming in as patients and doctors. . . .

  A paraplegic, though. Not a quad. Not a child with a brilliant, flexible mind, trapped in an inert body.

  Brilliant mind. Inert body. Brilliant—

  An idea blinded him, it occurred so suddenly. He was not the only person watching Tia—there was one other. Someone who watched every patient here, every doctor, every nurse. . . . Someone he didn't consult too often, because Lars wasn't a medico, or a shrink—

  But in this case, Lars' opinion was likely to be more accurate than anyone else's on this station. Including his own.

  He thumbed a control. "Lars," he said shortly. "Got a minute, buddy?"

  He had to wait for a moment. Lars was a busy guy—though hopefully at this hour there weren't too many demands on his conversational circuits. "Certainly, Kenny," Lars replied after a few seconds. "How can I help the neurological wunderkind of Central Worlds MedStation Pride of Albion? Hmm?" The voice was rich and ironic; Lars rather enjoyed teasing everyone onboard. He called it "therapeutic deflation of egos." He particularly liked deflating Kenny's—he had said more than once that everyone else was so afraid of being "unkind to the poor cripple" that they danced on eggs to avoid telling him when he was full of it.

  "Can the sarcasm, Lars," Kenny replied. "I've got a serious problem that I want your opinion on."

  "My opinion?" Lars sounded genuinely surprised. "This must be a personal opinion—I'm certainly not qualified to give you a medical one."

  "Most definitely, a very personal opinion, one that you are the best suited to give. On Hypatia Cade."

  "Ah." Kenny thought that Lars' tone softened considerably. "The little child in the Neuro unit, with the unchildlike taste in holos. She still thinks I'm the AI. I haven't dissuaded her."

  "Good, I want her to be herself around you, for the gods of space know she won't be herself around the rest of us." He realized that his tone had gone savage and carefully regained control over himself before he continued. "You've got her records and you've watched the kid herself. I know she's old for it—but how would she do in the shell program?"

  A long pause. Longer than Lars needed simply to access and analyze records. "Has her condition stabilized?" he asked, cautiously. "If it hasn't—if she goes brain-inert halfway into her schooling—it'd not only make problems for anyone else you'd want to bring in late, it'll traumatize the other shell-kids badly. They don't handle death well. I wouldn't be a party to frightening them, however inadvertently."

  Kenny massaged his temple with the long, clever fingers that had worked so many surgical miracles for others and could do nothing for this little girl. "As far as we can tell anything about this—disease—yes, she's stable," he said finally. "Take a look in there and you'll see I ordered a shotgun approach while we were testing her. She's had a full course of every anti-viral neurological agent we've got a record of. And non-invasive things like a course of ultra—well, you can see it there. I think we killed it, whatever it was."

  Too late to help her. Damn it.

  "She's brilliant," Lars said cautiously. "She's flexible. She has the ability to multi-thread, to do several things at once. And she's had good, positive reactions to contact with shellpersons in the past."

  "So?" Kenny asked, impatiently, as the stars passed by in their courses, indifferent to the fate of one little girl. "Your opinion."

  "I think she can make the transition," Lars said, with more emphasis than Kenny had ever heard in his voice before. "I think she'll not only make the transition, she'll do well."

  He let out the breath he'd been holding in a sigh.

  "Physically, she is certainly no worse off than many in the shellperson program, including yours truly," Lars continued. "Frankly, Kenny, she's got so much potential it would be a crime to let her rot in a hospital room for the rest of her life."

  The careful control Lars normally had over his voice was gone; there was passion in his words that Kenny had never heard him display until this moment. "Got to you, too, did she?" he said dryly.

  "Yes," Lars said, biting off the word. "And I'm not ashamed of it. I don't mind telling you that she had me in—well, not tears, but certainly the equivalent."

  "Good for you." He rubbed his hands together, warming cold fingers. "Because I'm going to need your connivance again."

  "Going to pull another fast one, are you?" Lars asked with ironic amusement.

  "Just a few strings. What good does being a stellar intellect do me, if I can't make use of the position?" he asked rhetorically. He shut the viewport and pivoted his chair to face his desk, keying on his terminal and linking it directly to Lars and a very personal database. One called "Favors." "All right, my friend, let's get to work. First, whose strings can you jerk? Then, who on the political side has influence in the program, of that set, who owes me the most, and of that subset, who's due here
the soonest?"

  * * *

  A Sector Secretary-General did not grovel, nor did he gush, but to Kenny's immense satisfaction, when Quintan Waldheim-Querar y Chan came aboard the Pride of Albion, the very first thing he wanted, after all the official inspections and the like were over, was to meet with the brilliant neurologist whose work had saved his nephew from the same fate as Kenny himself. He already knew most of what there was to know about Kenny and his meteoric career.

  And Quintan Waldheim-Querar y Chan was not the sort to avoid an uncomfortable topic.

  "A little ironic, isn't it?" the Secretary-General said, after the firm handshake, with a glance at Kenny's Moto-Chair. He stood up and did not tug self-consciously at his conservative dark blue tunic.

  Kenny did not smile, but he took a deep breath of satisfaction. Doubly good. No more calls, we have a winner.

  "What, that my injury was virtually identical to Peregrine's?" he replied immediately. "Not ironic at all, sir. The fact that I found myself in this position was what prompted me to go into neurology in the first place. I won't try to claim that if I hadn't been injured, and hadn't worked so hard to find a remedy for the same injuries, someone else might not have come up with the same answer that I did. Medical research is a matter of building on what has come before, after all."

  "But without your special interest, the solution might well have come too late to do Peregrine any good," the Secretary-General countered. "And it was not only your technique, it was your skill that pulled him through. There is no duplication of that—not in this sector, anyway. That's why I arranged for this visit. I wanted to thank you."

  Kenny shrugged deprecatingly. This was the most perfect opening he'd ever seen in his life—and he had no intention of letting it get away from him. Not when he had the answer to Tia's prayers trapped in his office.

  "I can't win them all, sir," he said flatly. "I'm not a god. Though there are times I wish most profoundly that I was, and right now is one of them."

  The Great Man's expression sobered. The Secretary-General was not just a Great Man because he was an excellent administrator; he was one because he had a human side, and that human and humane side could be touched. "I take it you have a case that is troubling you?" Then, conscious of the fact that he Owed Kenny, he said the magic words. "Perhaps I can help?"