The City and the Ship

by Anne McCaffrey

  Amos leaned over. They kissed; she stroked his dark hair and gently cupped the back of his head in her hand.

  "It is good to have privacy," he said huskily.

  "Yes," she agreed, "it is good." And it adds spice, she thought. Like sneaking out of bounds when you're in school.

  * * *

  Simeon watched Channa's door open and close, though no one appeared to be near it. He suppressed a burst of resentment. He had told them he'd turn off the sensors if they requested it. But no, they'd just gone and shut him out without a word . . .

  What is the universe coming to? he thought in irritation. Besides, there's a child present!

  A child who had presented him with a techno-itch he could not scratch. On reflection, he decided the analogy was maddeningly accurate. Try as he might, his attention came looping back to the nagging gaps in his recordings. He was accustomed to knowing everything that went on. Joat's earlier white-noise machines and attention-deflectors were minor irritations compared to this newest gadget. Of course, she hadn't had access to the engineering labs before this.

  "The child was probably born with a microtool in her hand," he muttered. Now, how did the wands function? Joat had, after all, given him a hint. She might be a genius, but Simeon was a shellperson, with all the computer power and experience that implied.

  And I'm also constitutionally unable to resist picking up the gauntlet, he thought happily. There were times when the only way to get rid of a temptation was to give in to it. . . .

  I can't believe this, he told himself, fifteen minutes later. Equipment made by the best minds in the Central Worlds flummoxed by a preteen! Which confirmed long-held thoughts about the quality of minds attracted to the Central Worlds bureaucracy. Simeon had long thought that it was a private miracle he hadn't come out prosthetized into a camel, since the design teams were committees. Now, he must meet this challenge.

  * * *

  Channa arched her back against Amos's weight, her hands caressed the slick, silken skin of his back. He kissed her throat and she sighed happily, ready for—

  "Oh, Chaaannaaa, I seee yooou."

  "Ack, ckgak!"

  Amos raised his head from the crook of her neck to look at her. The mixture of puzzlement and sensuality on his face looked very silly, not to mention slightly nauseated. Simeon laughed.

  Oh, this is terrible, Channa thought. Yet it was impossible not to see the moment from Simeon's point of view for a second. She laughed, caught between rage and helpless mirth. Amos bobbed up and down with her laughter. His expression assumed a martyred quality that caused her to lose control completely.

  "Channa," he said desperately, rolling off and holding her in his arms. "Channa, my darling—are you all right?"

  She struggled to speak, to reassure him that her sanity was intact. "Sim . . . Sim . . . he . . . hehe . . . hehehe," she had to avoid the word he. "Sim . . ." she gasped, "my implant . . . he . . . hehe, mmrrmph . . . can see us."

  She stopped, panting and watched his look of concern melt. Suddenly she was slightly frightened. This was a man accustomed to redressing insult, and his ego had just received a terribly humiliating one.

  "Simeon!" he roared. The door seemed to recoil before his headlong passage, and the cooler wind from the lounge brought goosebumps to her skin.

  Amos picked up the first thing his hand encountered, a vase, and threw it against Simeon's column.

  "You incest eater!" he bellowed. "You filthy pi dog! Banchut!"

  Channa appeared in her doorway, wrapped in a sheet. I've never seen a naked, erect man in a fit of rage before, she thought dazedly. Oh, I really shouldn't have broken up. Men get so focused at that particular moment!

  "How could you do something so vile! Have you no decency?" Amos was demanding.

  "What the hell is goin' on?" Joat asked, and stopped, poleaxed at the sight of a naked and raging Amos.

  Amos dived for the sheet Channa was wearing and they tussled for it. He settled for dragging a small corner of it over his hips.

  He drew himself up. "Go back to bed, Joat, this does not concern you." The pure mad anger had drained out of his voice. Bethel had a nudity taboo, and he was suddenly and acutely conscious of being naked before a twelve-year-old girl.

  "Don't take it out on her, Simeon-Amos, I'm the one you're mad at," Simeon said.

  Amos spun round, losing his grip on the sheet. "I am unlikely to forget that!" he said between clenched teeth.

  "Nice buns," Joat murmured in abstract appreciation.

  Channa and Amos turned to stare at her.

  "Hey, you guys," she said blushing. "I'm young! I'm not dead."

  "What kind of people are you?" Amos murmured in shock. "Your children leer, your shellpeople are voyeurs . . ." His gaze snapped to Channa. "And you, what sort of pervert are you?"

  "Me? Oh, now wait just one minute, Simeon-Amos, I'm a victim here, too."

  "I do not think so. You find this amusing, but I do not!" Turning his back on them all, he strode to his quarters in a fury, the door calmly swishing shut behind him.

  "Whoa!" Joat said enthusiastically. "What's a voyeur?"

  Channa's mouth firmed grimly. "A voyeur, Joat, is a nasty-minded son of a bitch who keeps poking his nose into private matters."

  "Ah. Sorta like Dorgan the Organ from Child Welfare."

  Ouch, Simeon winced.

  Channa nodded, with crisp malice. "I promise I'll explain tomorrow, but right now I have to talk to Simeon."

  "Oboyoboy," Joat said. "Are you ever in the deep pucky, Simeon." She slapped his column on the way back to her room. "Naughty, naughty!"

  Channa hiked up the sheet and sat herself down in one of the lounge chairs. She clasped her hands in her lap, saying nothing, chewing her lower lip.

  "Um," Simeon said. "He's still furious. He's throwing things around in there."

  "Stop spying on him!" Channa said irritably.

  "I don't have to spy. Just listen."

  It was true, even through the door the sound of objects hitting walls could be heard. Then an ominous silence. After a minute, a fully dressed Amos emerged and left the quarters without a backward glance or a further word. Channa rose quickly and took a step in his direction.

  "Hey! You can't follow him like that! Besides, where's he gonna go?"

  "Well . . . I suppose this show of your vigilance was our own fault," Channa said grimly. "We would challenge you." She smiled, a wintry expression. "I guess you showed us."

  Simeon gave a soft groan. "I'd rather end the evening on a positive note. I now know that I can contact you even when their sensors can't find you."

  "Yes, there is that application of tonight's experiment," she said tiredly. "I'll be sure to point that out to Simeon-Amos when next I see him. If I see him."

  "I'm sorry, Channa," Simeon said contritely after an awkward pause. "I was out of line."

  "Yes, you were. For that particular activity, an invitation is required."

  "And I know that it's difficult for you folks when coitus is interrupted."

  She raised a brow. "Are you asking for information?"

  "Um, nooo," he said hopefully.

  "You are a swine, Simeon, an utter filthy pig! If you want to know, look it up, in a medical text, skip the pornography." And then she gave a despairing laugh. "Oh, God, he'll never speak to me again. Where is he?"

  "He's still on the move. At a guess, he's going to Joseph's. Best thing for him really, a little male bonding. Maybe they'll get drunk together and complain about how badly the women in their lives treat them."

  "This woman in his life was treating him just fine until you showed up!"

  "Is it my fault he's so parochial?"

  "Parochial!" Channa exclaimed. "Simeon, wrong use of that word. A man, any man who is one, will take offense at being spied on while making love. So now you've called him a name, it's all his fault, and none of your own, is that it?"

  "No," he said calmly, "I still accept responsibility for what I did. Let's
not fight about Simeon-Amos, Channa."

  She leaned her head against the back of the chair, "No, let's not fight about Simeon-Amos. We don't have time." She looked at his column from the corner of her eye. "It occurs to me that you were defending him not so long ago."

  "Maybe I was wrong."

  "No, you weren't. You know it, too. We are putting a lot of pressure on him when he'd arrived already under a crushing weight. He's lost everything, Sim, a whole world, family, friends. He blames himself for bringing the pirates to our door. Now he's working himself into the ground to save us from them. We should try very hard not to subject him to these little power games we play."

  "Ah . . . sure."

  "Because, Simeon, if you can't, you're not the person I thought you were. And if you aren't, I don't want to have anything to do with you once this is over."

  "Channa!"

  "Think about it, Simeon. You're sixty-eight years old. Grow up!"

  * * *

  Amos returned to the lounge for work the following morning, pale, distant, and polite. Simeon found an opportunity to apologize and convinced the Bethelite of his sincerity, vowing never to do such a thing again. Amos accepted the apology with the same detached courtesy that he received Channa's explanation, then closed himself firmly in his room.

  Dinner conversation that evening was so stilted that even Joat noticed. It was still early when Channa was left sitting alone next to the titanium pillar.

  "Simeon, come talk to me?"

  "Ah, she asks now instead of demanding."

  "Your charm has humbled me," she said with a grin. "Besides, I'm bored and really crave your company."

  "You sure it's my company you crave?"

  "Heh. Last night I was horny! Tonight I'm bored. Different things, fella."

  "I think that if I were you, I'd rather be horny."

  "Then you'd be an idiot," she said scornfully.

  "But I wouldn't be bored."

  She was silent a while. "Simeon, I'm scared. We may die."

  "Yeah," he replied. "I'm scared, too, Happy. Real scared. We don't have much time left." Another pause, and he added more brightly, "That was a hint."

  "Nah!" she said, shaking her head. "The moment came, was interrupted, and went. Amos needs someone kinder than a ball-buster like me."

  "Channa!" Simeon exclaimed, laughing and appalled. "I wouldn't call you a ball-buster."

  "You probably have."

  "But that was before I knew you," he admitted. "Rachel is a ball-buster. You're just a bit prickly."

  "Prickly?"

  "Yeah,"

  "Maybe I am horny," she said thoughtfully. "Lordy, all the male generative organs that are creeping into this conversation. But you know I'm right. We have to maintain a certain distance to carry this thing off . . . Simeon, say something to make me feel better."

  "Um, how about . . .

  "Stern daughter of the Voice of God!

  O Duty! if that name thou love . . .

  When empty terrors overawe;

  From vain temptations dost set free . . ."

  "Hey!"

  "No huh? Wrong mood?"

  "You might say that," she answered between clenched teeth. "Right now, the stern voice of duty is overrepresented in my thoughts."

  "True. Hmm. Different mood. Okay, how about:

  "Sound sleep by night; study and ease

  Together mixed; sweet recreation;

  And innocence, which most does please

  With meditation."

  "Sarcasm ill becomes you, Sim. Don't you want to help?"

  "Sorry, one more try,

  "I am the lion, and his lair!

  I am the fear that frightens me!

  I am the desert of despair!

  And the night of agony!

  Night or day, whate'er befall,

  I must walk that desert land,

  Until I dare my fear and call

  The lion out to lick my hand."

  She was silent for a long time. He could tell by her breathing that she was not angry, and he waited for her to think it through. At last she sighed.

  "You know me pretty well on short acquaintance, Sim."

  "Channa, he won't refuse you. He needs you as much as you need him right now. I screwed the pooch! I admit it. My only excuse—" she gave him a tired smile "—is that it's an area of life I'm just not equipped to understand very well. Why should you both be miserable alone, when you could be much happier together?"

  "After last night? And don't forget, I've already turned him down once, Simeon. He's got one free refusal coming to him."

  "What is this? A competitive sport? There are scores and free throws and penalties?"

  She laughed. "Sometimes. Depends on who you play with."

  "Take up military history, Channa. It's a lot easier on the psyche."

  She sighed again. "Not when you're about to become military history."

  "Oh for Christ's sake, Happy, get your butt off the couch and go knock on his door! You know you want to. C'mon, be honest."

  "I'm going to get changed, first, at least," she said glumly, striding into her room. "And don't call me Happy," she called over her shoulder.

  Why should I accommodate you on that, Channa, when I've noticed that, whenever I call you "Happy," you do what I tell you. I'm not giving up an advantage like that.

  "Ready?" he called.

  "What do you think?"

  He opened a sensor inside her room. She now had on a simple black skinsuit, but he thought it showed her off to advantage.

  "You'll do."

  Channa walked glumly to the door. "Here I am, courting rejection. You'd think I learned about that back when I was Joat's age."

  The door slid aside to reveal Amos on her threshold, his hand raised to knock. They exchanged looks. After a moment, they reached out to one another, and touched. Amos stepped into the room and the door slid firmly closed.

  * * *

  They melted into an embrace that marked the first step in a climb to the heights of passion.

  Simeon echoed the thought off the computer. When it came back, it had a fruity announcer's voice. He keyed on Ravel's "Bolero," an insinuating thread of sound that swelled and grew in intensity and volume until its passionate, vibrant climax. On the council table, he projected scenes: palm trees crashed in the wind and waves rolled in to welcoming shores, trains roared into tunnels and out again, wild beasts roared in the forests and people worked wet clay into messy phallic symbols on spinning potters' wheels.

  "Perfect," he decided, saving the program to hard storage. It wouldn't be tactful to show it anytime soon, but someday they would be a lot older and more mellow. Providing, of course, they survived the next weeks. Shellpeople had a lot of time to fill in. He listened to the music as it billowed and soared and swooned.

  Bless you my children, he thought in the direction of Amos and Channa. And now I will check in again with the auxiliary bridge. Soon to be the fake/real command center for SSS-900-C's encounter with the Kolnari.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  "Hey, Simeon," the Traffic Control watch said.

  "Yeah, Juke?"

  "I think I've got something here."

  Simeon shunted much of his attention to the sensors. This was part of the reason no computer could ever replace a colloidal brain; apart from the inherent lack of self-consciousness, of course. Computers were wonderful at collecting and collating data, but they could never really interpret it the way a human could.

  And there's no interface like that between a shellperson and his extensions, Simeon thought smugly.

  "Yeah, that is something," he said aloud. "But what?"

  "No powerplant neutrino signatures," Juke Cielpied said. He was a fresh-faced young man with a thatch of blond hair. "But the mass is there, that's for—Holy shithouse!"

  Suddenly the sleepy torpor of Communications and Navigation was a blur of activity. "Missile signatures, multiple, homing!"

  Simeon made an incoherent prayer. T
his was it. They might have no more than thirty seconds to live.

  "Starting mayday call," he said, "jammed! Engines pulsing."

  "Oh, boy, I'm getting powerplant signatures now," Juke said. "They just kicked online and then steadied. Four. Big mothers. Way overpowered for the masses, even more than a tug."

  "Warship engines," Simeon said grimly.

  The missiles were streaking in from all sides. He deployed the anti-meteor laser. Seconds later it slagged and exploded in a spectacular burst of vaporized synthetic and metal.

  "Neutral-particle beam," Simeon said. "Damage report follows." Thank The Powers That Be that it hadn't hit an inhabited area, at least. "Red alert. All personnel to emergency stations."

  This time there would be no fooling around. It was for real.

  Ooops.

  Simeon activated his sensors in the lounge and listened, hoping that things hadn't gotten too far in the very few moments that had passed since he'd politely turned them off. Unfortunately, judging by the soft sounds emerging from Channa's quarters, that was a vain hope.

  She'll never believe I didn't plan this, he thought, and wavered. It's an hour before they'll be here. His sensors showed the ships boosting at a very respectable normal-space acceleration. But if I don't tell her, I'm going to be in the same bad odor, just a different situation. A more important situation. Okay, here goes everything. He knocked.

  Channa froze and Amos slowed down. "I'm going to kill him," she said.

  Amos chuckled and kissed her; his hips moved and she gasped. "Why don't you ask what he wants first," he advised.

  "WHAT IS IT NOW?"

  "Uh, the enemy's just come into sensor range, four heavily armed ships, E.T.A. forty-one minutes. Sorry, guys, you needed to know!"

  Channa clasped Amos to her with arms and legs. "That's . . . enough time," she gasped. "And if you . . . stop I'm going to kill you."

  The hull of the station toned like a giant bell as the sprayshot slammed into the subspace antennae. Automatic alarms made their banshee wail. Dutifully waiting with his sensors turned down, Simeon might have mistaken Channa's high shriek, under other circumstances, for a cry of alarm.