Brain Ships Read online

  Kenny sighed, as if he were reluctant to continue the discussion. Wouldn't do to seem too eager. "Well—would you care to see some tape of the child?"

  Child. Children were one of the Great Man's weaknesses. He had sponsored more child-oriented programs than any three of his predecessors combined. "Yes. If it would not be violating the child's privacy."

  "Here—" Kenny flicked a switch, triggering the holo-record he already had keyed up. A record he and Anna had put together. Carefully edited, carefully selected, compiled from days of recordings with Lars' assistance and the psych-profile of the Great Man to guide them. "I promise I won't take more than fifteen minutes of your time."

  The first seven and a half minutes of this recording were of Tia at her most attractive; being very brave and cheerful for the interns and her parents. "This is Hypatia Cade, the daughter of Pota Andropolous-Cade and Braddon Maartens-Cade," he explained, over the holo. Quickly he outlined her background and her pathetic little story, stressing her high intelligence, her flexibility, her responsibility. "The prognosis isn't very cheerful, I'm afraid," he said, watching his chrono carefully to time his speech with the end of that section of tape. "No matter what we do, she's doomed to spend the rest of her life in some institution or other. The only way she could be at all mobile would be through direct synaptic connections—well, we don't do that here—they can only link in that way at Lab Schools, the shellperson project—"

  He stopped, as the holo flickered and darkened. Tia was alone.

  The arm of her chair reached out and grasped the sad little blue bear, hidden until now by the tray table and a pillow. It brought the toy in close to her face, and she gently rubbed her cheek against its soft fur coat. The lightning-bolt of the Courier Service on its shirt stood out clearly in this shot . . . one reason why Kenny had chosen it.

  "They've gone, Ted," she whispered to her bear. "Mum and Dad—they've gone back to the Institute. There's nobody left here but you, now."

  A single bright tear formed in one corner of her eye and slowly rolled down her cheek, catching what little light there was in the room.

  "What? Oh, no, it's not their fault, Ted—they had to. The Institute said so, I saw the dispatch. It said—it said since I w-w-wasn't going to get any b-b-b-better there was no p-p-p-point in—in—wasting v-v-valuable t-t-time—"

  She sobbed once, and buried her face in the teddy bear's fur.

  After a moment, her voice came again, muffled. "Anyway, it hurts them so m-much. And it's s-s-so hard to be b-brave for them. But if I cried, th-they'd only feel w-worse. I think m-maybe it's b-better this way, don't you? Easier. F-for every-b-b-b-body. . . ."

  The holo flickered again; same time, nearly the same position, but a different day. This time she was crying openly, tears coursing down her cheeks as she sobbed into the bear's little shirt. "We've given her the complete run of the library and the holo collection," Kenny said, very softly. "Normally, they keep her relatively amused and stimulated—but just before we filmed this, she picked out an episode of The Stellar Explorers—and—well—her parents said she had planned to be a pilot, you see—"

  She continued to cry, sobbing helplessly, the only understandable words being "—Teddy—I wanted—to go—I wanted to see the stars—"

  The holo flickered out, as Kenny turned the lights in his office back up. He reached for a tissue and wiped his eyes without shame. "I'm afraid she affects me rather profoundly," he said, and smiled weakly. "So much for my professional detachment."

  The Great Man blinked rapidly to clear his own eyes. "Why isn't something being done for that child?" he demanded, his voice hoarse.

  "We've done all we can—here," Kenny said. "The only possibility of giving that poor child any kind of a life is to get her into the shellperson program. But the Psychs at the Laboratory Schools seem to think she's too old. They wouldn't even send someone to come evaluate her, even though the parents petitioned them and we added our own recommendations. . . ."

  He let the sentence trail off significantly. The Secretary-General gave him a sharp look. "And you don't agree with them, I take it?"

  Kenny shrugged. "It isn't just my opinion," he said smoothly. "It's the opinion of the staff Psych assigned to her, the shellperson running this station, and a brainship friend of hers in the Courier Service. The one," he added delicately, "who gave her that little bear."

  Mentioning the bear sold the deal; Kenny could see it in the Great Man's expression. "We'll just see about that," the Secretary-General said. "The people you talked to don't have all the answers—and they certainly don't have the final say." He stood up and offered Kenny his hand again. "I won't promise anything—but don't be surprised if there's someone from the Laboratory Schools here to see her in the next few days. How soon can you have her ready for transfer, if they take her?"

  "Within twelve hours, sir," Kenny replied, secretly congratulating himself for getting her parents to sign a writ-of-consent before they left. Of course, they thought it was for experimental procedures.

  Then again, Pota and Braddon had been the ones who'd broached the idea of the shellperson program to the people at the Laboratory Schools and been turned down because of Tia's age.

  "Twelve hours?" The Great Man raised an eyebrow. Kenny returned him look for look.

  "Her parents are under contract to the Archeological Institute," he explained. "The Institute called them back out into the field, because their parental emergency leave was up. They weren't happy, but it was obey or be fired. Hard to find another job in that field that isn't with the Institute." He coughed. "Well, they trusted my work, and made me Tia's full guardian before they left."

  "So you have right-of-disposition and guardianship. Very tidy." The Secretary-General's wry smile showed that he knew he had been maneuvered into this—and that he was not annoyed. "All right. There'll be someone from the schools here within the week. Unless there's something you haven't told me about the girl, he should finish his evaluation in two days. At the end of those two days . . ." One eyebrow raised significantly. "Well, it would be very convenient if he could take the new recruit back with him, wouldn't it?"

  "Yes, sir," Kenny said happily. "It would indeed, sir."

  * * *

  If it hadn't been for Doctor Uhua-Sorg's reputation and the pleas of his former pupil, Lars Mendoza, Philip Gryphon bint Brogen would have been only too happy to tell the committee where to stick the Secretary-General's request. And what to do with it after they put it there. One did not pull strings to get an unsuitable candidate into the shell program! Maybe the Secretary-General thought he could get away with that kind of politicking with Academy admissions, but he was going to find out differently here.

  Philip was not inclined to be coaxed and would not give in to bullying. So it was in a decidedly belligerent state of mind that he disembarked from his shuttle onto the docks of the Pride of Albion. Like every hospital station, this one affronted him with its sterile white walls and atmosphere of self-importance.

  There was someone waiting—obviously for him—in the reception area. Someone in a Moto-Chair. A handsome young man with thick dark hair and a thin, ascetic face.

  If they think they can soften me up by assigning me to someone they think I won't dare be rude to—he thought savagely, as the young man glided the Chair toward him. Conniving beggars—

  "Professor Brogen?" said the ridiculously young, vulnerable-looking man, holding out his hand. "I'm Doctor Sorg."

  "If you think I'm going to—" Brogen began, not reaching out to take it—then the name registered on him and he did a classic double-take. "Doctor Sorg? Doctor Uhua-Sorg?"

  The young man nodded, just the barest trace of a smile showing on his lips.

  "Doctor Kennet Uhua-Sorg?" Brogen asked, feeling as if he'd been set up, yet knowing he had set up himself for this particular fall.

  "Yes indeed," the young man replied. "I take it that you weren't—ah—expecting me to meet you in person."

  A chance for an
out—not a graceful one, but an out—and Brogen took it. "Hardly," he replied brusquely. "The Chief of Neurosurgery and Neurological Research usually does not meet a simple professor on behalf of an ordinary child."

  "Tia is far from ordinary, Professor," Doctor Sorg responded, never once losing that hint of smile. "Any more than you are a 'simple' professor. But, if you'll follow me, you'll find out about Tia for yourself."

  * * *

  Well, he's right about one thing, Brogen thought grudgingly, after an hour spent in Tia's company while hordes of interns and specialists pestered, poked and prodded her. She's not ordinary. Any "ordinary" child would be having a screaming tantrum by now. She was an extraordinarily attractive child as well as a patient one; her dark hair had been cropped short to keep it out of the way, but her thin, pixie-like face and big eyes made her look like the model for a Victorian fairy. A fairy trapped in a fist of metal . . . tormented and teased by a swarm of wasps.

  "How much longer is this going to go on?" he asked Kennet Sorg in an irritated whisper.

  Kennet raised one eyebrow. "That's for you to say," he replied. "You are here to evaluate her. If you want more time alone with her, you have only to say the word. This is her second session for the day, by the way," he added, and Brogen could have sworn there was a hint of—smugness?—in his voice. "She played host to another swarm this morning, between nine and noon."

  Now Brogen was outraged, but on the child's behalf. Kennet Sorg must have read that in his expression, for he turned his chair towards the cluster of white-uniformed interns, cleared his throat, and got their instant attention.

  "That will be all for today," he said quietly. "If you please, ladies and gentlemen, Professor Brogen would like to have some time with Tia alone."

  There were looks of disappointment and some even of disgust cast Brogen's way, but he ignored them. The child, at least, looked relieved.

  Before he could say anything to Kennet Sorg, he realized that the doctor had followed the others out the door, which was closing behind his chair, leaving Brogen alone with the child. He cleared his own throat awkwardly.

  The little girl looked at him with a most peculiar expression in her eyes. Not fear, but wariness.

  "You're not a Psych, are you?" she asked.

  "Well—no," he said. "Not exactly. I'll probably ask some of the same questions, though."

  She sighed, and closed her blue eyes for a moment. "I'm very tired of having my head shrunk," she replied forthrightly. "Very, very tired. And it isn't going to make any difference at all in the way I think, anyway. It isn't fair, but this—" she bobbed her chin at her chair "—isn't going to go away because it isn't fair. Right?"

  "Sad, but true, my dear." He began to relax, and realized why. Kennet Sorg was right. This was no ordinary child; talking with her was not like talking to a child—but it was like talking to one of the kids in the shell program. "So—how about if we chat about something else entirely. Do you know any shellpersons?"

  She gave him an odd look. "They must not have told you very much about me," she said. "Either that, or you didn't pay very much attention. One of my very best friends is a brainship—Moira Valentine-Maya. She gave me Theodore."

  Theodore? Oh—right. The bear—He cast a quick glance over towards the bed—and there was the somber-looking little bear in a Courier Service shirt that he'd been told about.

  "Did you ever think about what being in a shell must be like?" he asked, fishing for a way to explain the program to her without letting her know she was being evaluated.

  "Of course I did!" she said, not bothering to hide her scorn. "I told Moira that I wanted to be just like her when I grew up, and she laughed at me and told me all about what the schools were like and everything—"

  And then, before he could say anything, the unchildlike child proceeded to tell him about his own program. The brainship side, at any rate.

  Pros and cons. From having to be able to multi-task, to the thrill of experiencing a singularity and warp-space firsthand. From being locked forever in a metal skin, to the loneliness of knowing that you were going to outlive all your partners but the last . . .

  "I told her that I guessed I didn't want to go in when I figured out that you could never touch anybody again," she concluded, wearily. "I know you've got sensors to the skin and everything, but that was what I didn't like. Kind of funny, huh?"

  "Why?" he asked without thinking.

  "Because now—I can't touch anybody. And I won't ever again. So it's kind of funny. I can't touch anyone anymore, but I can't be a brainship either." The tired resignation in her voice galvanized him.

  "I don't know why you couldn't," he said, aware that he had already made up his mind, and both aghast and amused at himself. "There's room in this year's class for another couple of new candidates; there's even room in the brainship category for one or two pupils."

  She blinked at him, then blurted, "But they told me I was too old!"

  He laughed. "My dear, you wouldn't be too old if you were your mother's age. You would have been a good shell-program candidate well past puberty." He still couldn't believe this child; responsible, articulate, flexible. . . . Lars and Kennet Sorg had been right. It made him wonder how many other children had been rejected out of hand, simply because of age—how many had been lost to a sterile existence in an institution, just because they had no one as persistent and as influential as Kennet Sorg to plead their cases.

  Well, one thing at a time. Grab this one now. Put something in place to take care of the others later. "I'm going to have to go through the motions and file the paperwork—but Tia, if you want, you can consider yourself recruited this very instant."

  "Yes!" she burst out. "Oh, yes! Yes, yes, yes! Oh, please, thank you, thank you so much—" Her cheeks were wet with tears, but the joy on her face was so intense that it was blinding. Professor Brogen blinked and swallowed a lump in his throat.

  "The advantage of recruiting someone your age," he said, ignoring her tears and his tickling eyes, "is that you can make your career path decision right away. Shellpersons don't all go into brainships—for instance, you could opt for a career with the Institute; they've been asking to hire a shellperson to head their home-base research section for the last twenty years. You could do original research on the findings of others—even your parents' discoveries. You could become a Spaceport Administrator, or a Station Administrator. You could go into law, or virtually any branch of science. Even medicine. With the synaptic links we have, there is no career you cannot consider."

  "But I want to be a brainship," she said firmly.

  Brogen took a deep breath. While he agreed with her emotionally—well, there were some serious drawbacks. "Tia, a lot of what a brainship does is—well, being a truck driver or a cabby. Ferrying people or things from one place to another. It isn't very glamorous work. It is quite dangerous, both physically and psychologically. You would be very valuable, and yet totally unarmed, unless you went into the military branch, which I don't think you're suited for, frankly. You would be a target for thieves and malcontents. And there is one other thing; the ship is very expensive. In my not-so-humble opinion, brainship service is just one short step from indentured slavery. You are literally paying for the use and upkeep of that ship by mortgaging yourself. There is very little chance of buying your contract out in any reasonable length of time unless you do something truly spectacular or take on very dangerous duties. The former isn't likely to happen in ordinary service—and you won't be able to exchange boring service for whatever your fancy is."

  Tia looked stubborn for a moment, then thoughtful. "All of that is true," she said, finally. "But—Professor, Dad always said I had his astrogator genes, and I was already getting into tensor physics, so I have the head for starflight. And it's what I want."

  Brogen turned up his hands. "I can't argue with that. There's no arguing with preferences, is there?" In a way, he was rather pleased. As self-possessed as Tia was, she would do very well in br
ainship service. And as stable as she seemed to be, there was very little chance of her having psychological problems, unless something completely unforeseen came up.

  She smiled shyly. "Besides, I talked this over with Moira—you know, giving her ideas on how she could get some extra credits to help with all her fines for bouncing her brawns? Since she was with Archeology and Exploration as a courier, there were lots of chances for her to see things that the surveyors might not, and I kind of told her what to look for. I kind of figured that with my background, it wouldn't be too hard to get assigned to A and E myself, and I could do the same things, only better. I could get a lot of credits that way. And once I owned my ship—well, I could do whatever I wanted."

  Brogen couldn't help himself; he started to laugh. "You are quite the young schemer, did you know that?"

  She grinned, looking truly happy for the first time since he had seen her. Now that he had seen the real thing, he recognized all her earlier "smiles" for the shams that they had been.

  Leaving her here would have been a crime. A sin.

  "Well, you can consider yourself recruited," he said comfortably. "I'll fill out the paperwork tonight, databurst it to the schools as soon as I finish, and there should be a confirmation waiting for us when we wake up. Think you can be ready to ship out in the morning?"

  "Yes, sir," she said happily.

  He rose and started to leave—then paused for a moment.

  "You know," he said, "you were right. I really didn't pay too much attention to the file they gave me on you, since I was so certain that—well, never mind. But I am terribly curious about your name. Why on earth did your parents call you 'Hypatia'?"

  Tia laughed out loud, a peal of infectious joy.

  "I think, Professor Brogen," she said, "that you'd better sit back down!"