Brain Ships

by Anne McCaffrey

  * * *

  Despite her slowdown to cruising speeds, Nancia reached Shemali while she was still mulling over how to identify herself to the spaceport crew. Arrival of a Courier Service brainship was an unusual event on these remote planets; she didn't want to alert Polyon, give him a chance to cover up—whatever there was to cover up, and there must be something! Nancia thought.

  In the event, the decision was made for her.

  "OG-48, cleared for landing from orbit," the bored voice of a spaceport controller crackled over her comm link while Nancia hovered and wondered how to introduce herself without alarming anybody.

  She quickly scanned her external sensor views. There were no other ships visible in orbit around Shemali, and any OG ship on the far side of the planet should have been out of commlink range. They must be speaking to her—oh, of course! Nancia chuckled to herself. Since the sting operation off Bahati, she'd been far too busy to demand a new paint job. The mauve-and-puce pseudowalls of an OG Shipping drone still cluttered her interior; the OG stencil was presumably still prominently displayed on her external skin. Darnell Overton-Glaxely had a reputation for picking up and retrofitting ships from any possible source. Her sleek CS shape would be unusual for a shipping line's vessel, but apparently not unusual enough to rouse any suspicion in the spaceport controller. As he droned on with landing instructions, Nancia thought she recognized the calm, level, uninflected voice. Not that voice specifically, but the feeling of detachment from worldly cares. Since when do Blissto addicts hold responsible spaceport positions? I knew something was very wrong here. And we—Forister and Micaya and I—are going to find out what!

  She settled on the landing pad with a sense of exultation and adventure. Then, as she took in her surroundings, the bubbles of joyous feelings went as flat as long-opened Stemerald.

  "Ugh! What happened to this place?" Forister exclaimed as soon as Nancia cleared her display screens to give him a view of Shemali from the spaceport.

  The permacrete of the landing pads was cracked and stained, and the edge of the 'crete had a ragged hole eaten into it, as though somebody had spilled a drum of industrial biocleaners and hadn't bothered to clean up the results before the microscopic biocleaners ate themselves to death on permacrete and paint. The spaceport building was a windowless permacrete block, grim and forbidding as any maximum-security prison—which, of course, described the whole planet.

  Beyond the spaceport, clouds of green and purple smoke billowed into the air. Presumably they were the source of the greenish-black ashes which had drifted over every surface visible to Nancia.

  While they waited for the spaceport controller to identify himself and welcome them to Shemali, a blast of wind shrieked across the open landing field, catching the ashes and tossing them into whirling columns of pollution that collapsed as rapidly as they had arisen.

  Nancia's external monitors recorded the wind temperature at 5 degrees Centigrade.

  "Shemali deserves its name," she murmured.

  "What's that?"

  "North Wind," Nancia said. "Alpha knows the language from which all the Nyota system names come. She mentioned the translations once . . . a long time ago."

  "Is the rest of the planet like this?"

  Nancia briefly replaced the view of the outside with magnified displays of the images she'd taken in while descending from orbit. At the time she'd been too exercised over the problem of an appropriate greeting formula to worry much about the surface problems of the planet. Now she and Forister gazed in horrified silence at stagnant pools in which no living thing stirred, valleys eroded from the brutal road cuts leading to new hyperchip plants, swirling clouds of dust and ash blanketing woods in which the trees died and no birds sang.

  "I didn't know that one factory could do so much damage to a planet," Forister said slowly.

  "Looks as if there are several factories operating now," Micaya pointed out. "All running at top capacity, I'd guess, with no concern for damage to the environment . . . and Shemali's winds will have distributed the polluting waste products planet-wide."

  "Did nobody visit Shemali before recommending Polyon for a GSA? Probably not," Forister answered his own question. "Who wants to come to a prison planet in a minor star system? And his records are good, you said, Nancia?"

  "The public records are excellent," Nancia replied. "It appears that Polyon de Gras-Waldheim has truly been making every effort to see that the maximum quantity of hyperchips is manufactured and that they are distributed as widely as possible." At incalculable cost to the environment. But that's not a crime . . .not legally, not here anyway. If Central cared about Shemali, they wouldn't have located the prison metachip factory here to begin with.

  A pounding on the lower doors reverberated through Nancia's outer skin. She switched back to external auditory and visual sensors. The ones on her landing braces gave her a narrow view of whoever was making this commotion . . . a gaunt man wrapped in tattered rags that looked like the remnants of a prison uniform, gray smock and loose trousers, and with more rags draped over his head and bound about his fists.

  He was calling her name. "Nancia! Nancia, let me in, quickly!"

  On the edge of the landing field, two bulky figures in gleaming silvercloth protective suits moved slowly forward, awkward and menacing. The silver hoods covered their faces like helmets, the silver suits glittered around them like armor. But the weapons in their raised hands were not knightly lances, but nerve disrupters, bulky squat shapes more menacing than any iron lance point.

  Nancia slid open the lower doors. The fugitive collapsed against the opening doors and fell into the cargo bay. As one of the silver-suited figures raised its nerve disrupter, Nancia slammed the doors shut again. The rays bounced harmlessly against her outer shell; she absorbed the energy without conscious thought. All her attention was on the ragged prisoner who was now pushing himself to his knees, slowly and painfully unwinding the rags from around his face.

  "That may not have been a wise decision," Forister commented mildly. "We don't wish to become embroiled with the local authorities. Prison disputes aren't part of our mission."

  "This man is," Nancia replied. She switched the display screens to show what her sensors were picking up in the cargo bay. Micaya Questar-Benn was the first to gasp in recognition.

  "Young Bryley-Sorensen! How did he get into Shemali prison . . . and out again . . . and in such condition?"

  "That," said Nancia grimly, "I should very much like to know."

  Sev pulled himself upright by one of the support struts that crisscrossed the cargo bay. "Nancia, don't let anybody else in. There's—you don't know—terrible things on Shemali. Terrible," he repeated. His eyes rolled up and he slid to the floor again.

  "Forister, Micaya, get him out of the cargo bay before those two guards or whatever come knocking on my doors," Nancia snapped. "No, wait. I have an idea. Take his clothes off first and leave them there."

  "Why?"

  "Don't have time to explain. Just do it!" She set her kitchen synthesizers to work and turned on the incinerator. What she had in mind would never work if Shemali were a decently run prison. But what she'd seen of the ravages wreaked on the planet matched what she remembered of young Polyon de Gras-Waldheim's ruthless personality, and Sev's last gasped words were all the confirmation she needed.

  While Forister and Micaya stripped the unconscious Sev and manhandled him into the lift, Nancia expanded her sensor reception to examine him more closely. She recorded everything for future analysis, taking particular note of the horrible skin lesions that disfigured both Sev's arms and one leg. Dark bruises flowered in purple and blue and green on his ribs and stomach, and his back was crisscrossed with swollen weals that oozed red as the other two softpersons moved him. His breathing was shallow and irregular and he showed no sign of regaining consciousness while they dragged him to the lift.

  What had they done to him on Shemali? Nancia knew how to treat the surface injuries; but this was a planet of n
erve gas and acids. The lesions on his arms and legs frightened her. So did his desperate, ragged breath pattern. This went beyond the superficial injuries and known diseases she was qualified to treat. What they wanted was a doctor . . . and there happened to be one on board.

  Nancia flashed her images of Sev to Alpha's cabin. There was a cry of dismay, then a strangled sob. Fassa's voice, not Alpha's. Nancia realized that in her hurry, she'd transmitted the same display to all the passenger cabins. Already Darnell was cursing about the interruption of his vid. She switched off the receptors from his cabin and displayed images of the other three prisoners so that she could watch their faces while she consulted with Alpha.

  "Dr. Hezra-Fong," Nancia said formally, "we have just brought aboard a prisoner with the severe injuries you see. I fear Ganglicide poisoning. Can you treat him?"

  "That's not Ganglicide," Alpha said confidently. "Minor acid burns, that's all. But there may be some lung damage. I can't be sure from these vids. And with the location of those bruises, I'm worried about kidney damage and internal bleeding. Transport him to the medtech center. I'll have a look."

  She was cool and quick and competent; Nancia admired those qualities unwillingly. But could she be trusted with Sev's health?

  Alpha pushed on the closed cabin door and turned back to the sensor port. Her fine, sharp-featured face was pinched with annoyance. "FN-935, I cannot diagnose and treat this man by remote control! If you're interested in his health, I strongly suggest you open this door and allow me to do my job!"

  But what else would she do? Nancia wondered.

  "Let me go with her," Blaize suggested.

  "And me." Fassa's large eyes were filled with tears. Acting, or desperation? There was scant time to decide.

  Nancia instinctively trusted Blaize, but she wasn't sure how reliable he might be. He tended to go along with the majority. And if she let both Fassa and Blaize out with Alpha, the prisoners would be the majority among the softpersons.

  And whatever Fassa's crimes, Nancia somehow doubted that she would do anything to hurt Sev Bryley-Sorensen. Not after the scenes she had witnessed between them. Not after she'd watched Fassa sink into a depression between Bahati and Shemali, convinced that Sev had deserted her and that she would never see him again.

  "Fassa del Parma y Polo will accompany and assist Dr. Hezra-Fong," Nancia announced with a mental prayer that she was making the right decision.

  While the two women raced down the corridor to meet Forister and Micaya at the lift, Nancia slowly opened her lower cargo doors six inches. The silver-suited guard who stood outside had his fist raised to bang on the door; he lowered it now, but aimed his nerve disrupter into what he could see of the cargo bay.

  "And what can I do for you?" Nancia asked icily.

  "Drone OG-48, you are harboring an escaped prisoner," the guard said. "Return him to our custody now, or it'll be the worse for you. Your owner won't approve this, you know."

  Nancia managed an icy laugh that chilled her own sensors. "This is not a drone. You'll meet us in good time. As for that diseased bundle of rags that begged entrance, it has been disposed of appropriately. It looked as if it had Capellan jungle rot and Altair plague—not to mention Old Earth lice. Did you think we'd leave something like that cluttering up this nice clean ship?"

  "Don't try to lie to me," the guard warned. "This ship has been under surveillance from the moment of landing. The prisoner has not left the ship."

  "Who said anything about leaving? There are its clothes—if you can call those rags clothes," Nancia added disparagingly. She slid the cargo doors open another ten inches, just enough to let the guard squeeze in edgewise. "And here's the rest of your fugitive." She opened the disposal slot and extruded the contents. A pitiful little heap of organic ash, partially burnt protein, and charred bone fragments spilled out onto the tray. The guard stepped back, every line of his body expressing horror. Nancia wished she could see his face behind the silver permafilm and the finely woven breath mesh.

  "What's the matter?" she inquired. "He was dying anyway, you know."

  The guard stumbled towards the doors, making retching sounds behind his mask. "I thought de Gras-Waldheim was a cold one," he said between gagging noises, "but you OG Shipping types are worse yet."

  Nancia's last and most spine-chilling laugh followed him out onto the landing pad.

  "Don't you want to take the remains back?" she called after him.

  She slammed the cargo doors shut before he could answer, just in case he overcame his distaste and came back for the "remains." It would never do to let a lab get hold of the synthesized "bone" and algal-protein "flesh" that she had first created, then charred in the incinerator.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  "Stimpad! Drug stores!" Alpha snapped over her shoulder. Nancia silently extruded the required equipment from her medtech drawers. Alpha's slim dark fingers darted among the ampules supplied and loaded the pad with a combination of drugs. Nancia recognized a general nervous stimulant, a breathing regulator, and at least two kinds of anesthetic.

  "Er—are you sure those will work all right in combination?" she asked apologetically. Alpha was the doctor. But Nancia had been rigorously trained in the minor first aid and holding techniques she might expect to need until she could get an ailing brawn or passenger to a clinic; and one thing her instructor had been very, very firm about was the danger of unexpected side-effects from mixing two or more drugs.

  "You wanted an expert," Alpha snapped, "you got one. I've got to stabilize his condition before I can treat the superficial lesions and check for internal damage. This should keep him breathing . . . if anything will. We haven't a lot of time to waste, you know."

  Quietly, Fassa del Parma slid between Alpha and Sev's unconscious body, now prone on the padded examining bench that slid out of one wall in the narrow medtech chamber. "If the combination is harmless," she said, "try it on me first."

  "Don't be silly," Alpha sneered, "you've less than half his body mass. You'll be out of it for two days if I give you the same dose I've prepared for Bryley!"

  "Then just use half the stimpad," Fassa suggested. She pulled one sleeve down over her shoulder, exposing an expanse of creamy white skin, naked and vulnerable. "Here. I won't move. But I want to see a demonstration before you stick anything into . . . Sev." She gulped on his name, but otherwise her composure was unbroken.

  Nancia, who alone had the luxury of viewing the scene from several angles, thought she saw Sev's eyelids flutter at the sound of Fassa's voice. Neither of the young women noticed; they were too intent on one another. From the door, Micaya Questar-Benn watched in concern. Behind her, Forister glanced up at one of Nancia's hall sensors. "Time to intervene?" he mouthed soundlessly.

  "Wait a minute," Nancia whispered back, the merest thread of sound.

  Alpha stared at Fassa's calm face and the exposed shoulder she was offering. Her own face worked angrily. "I ought to take you up on it," she said, "you interfering dolt. Always were soft on men, weren't you? All right, then!" She tossed the loaded stimpad in the general direction of a disposal chute; Nancia extended the chute's wing-edges and caught the thing before it slid down into the recycling chamber. She wanted to have an independent lab analyze the first mix when they got to a civilized planet.

  Alpha prepared a second stimpad loaded with nothing more than a common stimulant. "Happier with this?" she asked the air, brows raised sarcastically.

  "Yes, thank you," said Nancia and Fassa simultaneously. But Fassa still insisted that Alpha inject her with a sample of each medication she used to treat Sev.

  "You're a fool," Alpha muttered, too low for General Questar-Benn to hear; Nancia had to amplify her audio sensors to catch the thread of speech. Alpha bent over Sev as she spoke, swabbing with short vicious strokes at the acid sores on his arms and legs. "He was in bad enough shape . . . if he'd never waked up, there'd be that much less evidence against you and me both. Do you feel that grateful to him for doing his best to put
you in prison?"

  "I've already killed once," Fassa said. "That's enough for me. What's that?"

  "Antibiotic spray. Relax," Alpha told her. "We had our chance to get rid of some evidence, you blew it, it's too late now. Got that freak of a general and the old fart brawn peering over our shoulders, ready to slap me with a malpractice suit on top of everything else. I'll do my best to patch your detective up for you—and my best," she added with simple pride that was quite undiminished by her criminal record, "my best, Fassa dear, is very good indeed."

  It was, too. Within the hour Sev was reclining on pillows, sipping camtea loaded with so much sugar and chalker that it was hardly recognizable, and explaining to Forister and Micaya the extent of what he'd uncovered on Shemali and why he'd been in such desperate straits when Nancia landed.

  "I made a few mistakes," he admitted with a grimace. "Disguising myself as a prisoner on an incoming transport seemed like the only way to slip onto Shemali unnoticed. It worked, too. But there were a few things I hadn't counted on after that."

  Sev had expected his faked "prison" records, showing expertise in metachip mathematics and computer network operation, to earn him a prison job somewhere in the administration, where he'd have a chance to poke around in Polyon's records and find what he was looking for. The position he was assigned to looked promising—but as soon as he started his search, everything had gone wrong.

  "Ah—you didn't say exactly what you were looking for on Shemali," Forister hinted courteously.

  Sev took a long gulp of his scalding camtea, coughed, gasped, and lay back looking a little weaker. "Not important. Important thing is, more going on than you can guess from outside. Don't have it all myself . . . but enough. . . ."

  Polyon's entire computer system was laced with coded traps and alarms; the first time Sev tried to access secure data, Polyon and his trusties were alerted and caught him in the act before he'd more than downloaded a handful of innocuous records. Sev then showed them his Central Worlds pass and explained that he was on an investigative mission having nothing to do with Polyon or Shemali.