Ship Who Searched

by Mercedes Lackey

  She trotted around the living room of the dome; picking up her books and puzzles, straightening the pillows on the sofa, turning on lights and the holoscape of waving blue trees by a green lagoon on Mycon, where her parents had met. She told the kitchen to start coffee, overriding the lunch program to instruct it to make selection V-1, a setup program Braddon had logged for her for munchies for visitors. She decided on music on her own; the Arkenstone Suite, a lively synthesizer piece she thought matched the holo-mural.

  There wasn’t much else to do, so she sat down and waited—something she had learned how to do very early. She thought she did it very well, actually. There had certainly been enough of it in her life. The lot of an archeologists’ child was full of waiting, usually alone, and required her to be mostly self-sufficient.

  She had never had playmates or been around very many children of her own age. Usually Mum and Dad were alone on a dig, for they specialized in Class One Evaluation sites; when they weren’t, it was usually on a Class Two dig, Exploratory. Never a Class Three Excavation dig, with hundreds of people and their families. It wasn’t often that the other scientists her parents’ age on a Class Two dig had children younger than their teens. And even those were usually away somewhere at school.

  She knew that other people thought that the Cades were eccentric for bringing their daughter with them on every dig—especially so young a child. Most parents with a remote job to do left their offspring with relatives or sent them to boarding schools. Tia listened to the adults around her, who usually spoke as if she couldn’t understand what they were talking about. She learned a great deal that way; probably more even than her Mum and Dad suspected.

  One of the things she overheard—quite frequently, in fact—was that she seemed like something of an afterthought. Or perhaps an “accident”—she’d overheard that before, too.

  She knew very well what was meant by the “afterthought or accident” comment. The last time someone had said that, she’d decided that she’d heard it often enough.

  It had been at a reception, following the reading of several scientific papers. She’d marched straight up to the lady in question and had informed her solemnly that she, Tia, had been planned very carefully, thank you. That Braddon and Pota had determined that their careers would be secure just about when Pota’s biological clock had the last few seconds on it, and that was when they would have one, singular, female child. Herself. Hypatia. Planned from the beginning. From the leave-time to give birth to the way she had been brought on each assignment; from the pressure-bubble glove-box that had served as her cradle until she could crawl, to the pressure-tent that became a crib, to the kind of AI that would best perform the dual functions of tutor and guardian.

  The lady in question, red-faced, hadn’t known what to say. Her escort had tried to laugh it away, telling her that the “child” was just parroting what she’d overheard and couldn’t possibly understand any of it.

  Whereupon Tia, well-versed in the ethnological habits—including courtship and mating—of four separate sapient species, including homo sap., had proceeded to prove that he was wrong.

  Then, while the escort was still spluttering, she had turned back to the original offender and informed her, with earnest sincerity, that she had better think about having her children soon, too, since it was obvious that she couldn’t have much more time before menopause.

  Tia had, quite literally, silenced that section of the room. When reproached later for her behavior by the host of the party, Tia had been completely unrepentant. “She was being rude and nasty,” Tia had said. When the host protested that the remark hadn’t been meant for her, Tia had replied, “Then she shouldn’t have said it so loudly that everyone else laughed. And besides,” she had continued with inexorable logic, “being rude about someone is worse than being rude to them.”

  Braddon, summoned to deal with his erring daughter, had shrugged casually and said only, “I warned you. And you didn’t believe me.”

  Though exactly what it was Dad had warned Doctor Julius about, Tia never discovered.

  The remarks about being “unplanned” or an “accident” stopped, at least in her presence—but people still seemed concerned that she was “too precocious,” and that she had no one of her own age to socialize with.

  But the fact was that Tia simply didn’t care that she had no other children to play with. She had the best lessons in the known universe, via the database; she had the AI to talk to. She had plenty of things to play with and lots of freedom to do what she wanted once lessons were done. And most of all, she had Mum and Dad, who spent hours more with her than most people spent with their children. She knew that, because both the statistics in the books she had read on child-care and the Socrates, the AI that traveled with them everywhere, told her so. They were never boring, and they always talked to her as if she was grown up. If she didn’t understand something, all she had to do was tell them and they would backtrack and explain until she did. When they weren’t doing something that meant they needed all their concentration, they encouraged her to come out to the digs with them when her lessons were over. She hadn’t ever heard of too many children who got to be with their parents at work.

  If anything, sometimes Mum and Dad explained a little too much. She distinctly remembered the time that she started asking “Why?” to everything. Socrates told her that “Why?” was a stage all children went through—mostly to get attention. But Pota and Braddon had taken her literally. . . .

  The AI told her not long ago that her “Why?” period might have been the shortest on record—because Mum and Dad answered every “Why?” in detail. And made sure she understood, so that she wouldn’t ask that particular “Why?” again.

  After a month, “Why?” wasn’t fun anymore, and she went on to other things.

  She really didn’t miss other children at all. Most of the time when she’d encountered them, it had been with the wary feeling of an anthropologist approaching a new and potentially dangerous species. The feeling seemed to be mutual. And so far, other children had proven to be rather boring creatures. Their interests and their worlds were very narrow, their vocabulary a fraction of Tia’s. Most of them hadn’t the faintest idea of how to play chess, for instance.

  Mum had a story she told at parties about how Tia, at the age of two, had stunned an overly effusive professorial spouse into absolute silence. There had been a chess set, a lovely antique, up on one of the tables just out of Tia’s reach. She had stared longingly at it for nearly half an hour before the lady noticed what she was looking at.

  Tia remembered that incident quite well, too. The lady had picked up an intricately carved knight and waggled it at her. “See the horsie?” she had gushed. “Isn’t it a pretty horsie?”

  Tia’s sense of fitness had been outraged—and that wasn’t all. Her intelligence had been insulted, and she was very well aware of it.

  She had stood up, very straight, and looked the lady right in the eye. “Is not a horsie,” she had announced, coldly and clearly. “Is a knight. It moves like the letter L. And Mum says it is piece most often sacri—sacer—sacra—”

  Mum had come up by then, as she grew red-faced, trying to remember how to say the word she wanted. “Sacrificed?” Mum had asked, helpfully. “It means ‘given up.’”

  Beaming with gratitude, Tia had nodded. “Most often given up after the pawn.” Then she glared at the lady. “Which is not a little man!”

  The lady had retired to a corner and did not emerge while Tia and her parents were there, although her Mum’s superior had then taken down the set and challenged Tia to a game. He had won, of course, but she had at least shown she really knew how to play. He had been impressed and intrigued, and had taken her out on the porch to point out various species of birds at the feeders there.

  She couldn’t help but think that she affected grownups in only two ways. They were either delighted by her, or scandalized by her. Moira was among the “delighted” sort, though most of her
brawns hadn’t been. Charlie had, though, which was why she had thought that he just might be the one to stay with the brainship. He actually seemed to enjoy the fact that she could beat him at chess.

  She sighed. Probably this new brawn would be of the other sort.

  Not that it really mattered how she affected adults. She didn’t see that many of them, and then it was never for very long. Though it was important to impress Mum’s and Dad’s superiors in a positive sense. She at least knew that much now.

  “Your visitor is at the airlock,” said the AI, breaking in on her thoughts. “His name is Tomas. While he is cycling, Moira would like you to have me turn on the ground-based radio link so that she can join the conversation.”

  “Go ahead, Socrates,” she told the AI. That was the problem with AIs; if they didn’t already have instructions, you had to tell them to do something before they would, where a shellperson would just do it if it made sense.

  “Tomas has your birthday present,” Moira said, a moment later. “I hope you like it.”

  “You mean, you hope I like him,” she replied shrewdly. “You hope I don’t scare him.”

  “Let’s say I use you as a kind of litmus test, all right?” Moira admitted. “And, darling—Charlie really did fall in love with a ground-pounder. Even I could see he wanted to be with her more than he wanted space.” She sighed. “It was really awfully romantic; you don’t see old-style love at first sight anymore. Michiko is such a charming little thing—I really can’t blame him. And it’s partly your fault, dear. He was so taken with you that all he could talk about was how he wanted children just like you. Well, anyway, she persuaded Admin to find him a ground job, and they traded me Tomas for him, with no fine, because it wasn’t my fault this time.”

  “It’s going to take you forever to buy out those fines for bouncing brawns,” Tia began, when the inner airlock door cycled, and a pressure-suited person came through, holding a box and his helmet.

  Tia frowned at seeing the helmet; he’d taken it off in the lock, once the pressure was equalized. That wasn’t a good idea, because locks had been known to blow, especially old ones like the Class One digs had. So already he was one in the minus column as far as Tia was concerned. But he had a nice face, with kind eyes, and that wasn’t so bad; a round, tanned face, with curly black hair and bright brown eyes, and a wide mouth that didn’t have those tense lines at the corners that Ari’d had. So that was one in the plus column. He came out even so far.

  “Hello, Tomas,” she said, neutrally. “You shouldn’t take your helmet off in the lock, you know—you should wait until the interior door cycles.”

  “She’s right, Tomas,” Moira piped up from the com console. “These Class One digs always get the last pick of equipment. All of it is old, and some of it isn’t reliable. Door seals blow all the time.”

  “It blew last month, when I came in,” Tia added helpfully. “It took Mum hours to install the new seal, and she’s not altogether happy with it.” Tomas’ eyes were wide with surprise, and he was clearly taken aback. He had probably intended to ask her where her parents were. He had not expected to be greeted by a lecture on pressure-suit safety.

  “Oh,” was all he could say. “Ah, thank you. I will remember that in the future.”

  “You’re welcome,” she replied. “Mum and Dad are at the dig; I’m sorry they weren’t here to meet you.”

  “I ought to make proper introductions,” Moira said from the console. “Tomas, this is Hypatia Cade. Her mother is Doctor Pota Andropolous-Cade and her father is Doctor Braddon Maartens-Cade. Tia, this is Tomas Delacorte-Ibanez.”

  “I’m very pleased to meet you, Tomas,” she replied with careful formality. “Mum and Dad will be here in—” she glanced at her wrist-chrono “—ten minutes. In the meantime, there is fresh coffee, and may I offer you anything to eat?”

  Once again, he was taken aback. “Coffee, please,” he replied after a moment. “If you would be so kind.”

  She fetched it from the kitchen; by the time she returned with the cup balanced in one hand and the refreshments in the other, he had removed his suit. She had to admit that he did look very handsome in the skintight ship-suit he wore beneath it. But then, all of Moira’s brawns had been good-looking. That was part of the problem; she tended to pick brawns on the basis of looks first and personality second.

  He accepted the coffee and food from her gravely, and a little warily, for all the world as if he had decided to treat her as some kind of new, unknown sentient. She tried not to giggle.

  “That is a very unusual name that you were given,” he said, after an awkward pause. “Hypatia, is it?”

  “Yes,” she said, “I was named for the first and only female librarian of the Great Library at Alexandria on Terra. She was also the last librarian there.”

  His eyes showed some recognition of the names at least. So he wasn’t completely ignorant of history, the way Julio had been. “Ah. That would have been when the Romans burned it, in the time of Cleopatra—” he began. She interrupted him with a shake of her head.

  “No, the library wasn’t destroyed then, not at all, not even close. It persisted as a famous library into the day of Constantine,” she continued, warming to her favorite story, reciting it exactly as Pota had told it to her, as it was written in the history database. “It was when Hypatia was the librarian that a pack of unwashed Christian fanatics stormed it—led by some people who called themselves prophets and holy men—intending to burn it to the ground because it contained ‘pagan books, lies, and heresies.’ When Hypatia tried to stop them, she was murdered, stoned to death, then trampled.”

  “Oh,” Tomas said weakly, the wind taken quite out of his sails. He seemed to be searching for something to say, and evidently chose the first thing that sprang to mind. “Uh—why did you call them ‘unwashed Christian fanatics?’”

  “Because they were,” she replied impatiently. “They were fanatics, and most of them were stylites and other hermits who made a point of not ever bathing because taking baths was Roman and pagan and not taking baths was Christian and mortifying the flesh.” She sniffed. “I suppose it didn’t matter to them that it was also giving them fleas and making them smell. I shan’t even mention the disease!”

  “I don’t imagine that ever entered their minds,” Tomas said carefully.

  “Anyway, I think Hypatia was very brave, but she could have been a little smarter,” Tia concluded. “I don’t think I would have stood there to let them throw stones at me; I would have run away or locked the door or something.”

  Tomas smiled unexpectedly; he had a lovely smile, very white teeth in his darkly tanned face. “Well, maybe she didn’t have much choice,” he said. “I expect that by the time she realized she wasn’t going to be able to stop those people, it was too late to get away.”

  Tia nodded, slowly, considering the ancient Alexandrian garments, how cumbersome they were and how difficult to run in. “I think you’re right,” she agreed. “I would hate to think that the librarian was stupid.”

  He laughed at that. “You mean you’d hate to think that the great lady you were named for was stupid,” he teased. “And I don’t blame you. It’s much nicer to be named for someone who was brave and heroic on purpose than someone people think was a hero just because she was too dense to get out of the way of trouble!”

  Tia had to laugh at that, and right then was when she decided that she was going to like Tomas. He hadn’t quite known what to make of her at first, but he’d settled down nicely and was treating her quite like an intelligent sentient now.

  Evidently Moira had decided the same thing, for when she spoke, her voice sounded much less anxious. “Tomas, aren’t you forgetting? You brought Tia her late birthday present.”

  “I certainly did forget!” he exclaimed. “I do beg your pardon, Tia!”

  He handed her the box he had brought, and she controlled herself very well, taking it from him politely, and not grabbing like a little child would have. “
Thank you, Moira,” she said to the com-console. “I don’t mind that it’s late—it’s kind of like getting my birthday all over again this way.”

  “You are just too civilized for your own good, dear,” Moira giggled. “Well, go ahead, open it!”

  She did, carefully undoing the fastenings of the rather plain box and exposing bright-colored wrapping beneath. The wrapped package within was odd-shaped, lumpy—

  She couldn’t stand it any longer; she tore into the present just like any other child.

  “Oh!” she exclaimed when she revealed her prize, for once caught without a word, holding him up to the light.

  “Do you like it?” Moira asked anxiously. “I mean, I know you asked, but you grow so fast, I was afraid you’d have outgrown him by now—”

  “I love him!” Tia exclaimed, hugging the bright blue bear suddenly, reveling in the soft fur against her cheek. “Oh Moira, I just love him!”

  “Well, it was quite a trick to find him, let me tell you,” Moira replied, her voice sounding very relieved, as Tomas grinned even wider. “You people move around so much—I had to find a teddy bear that would take repeated decontam procedures, one that would stand up to about anything quarantine could hand out. And it’s hard to find bears at all, they seem to have gone right out of style. You don’t mind that he’s blue?”

  “I like blue,” she said happily.

  “And you like him fuzzy? That was Tomas’ idea.”

  “Thank you, Tomas,” she told the brawn, who beamed. “He feels wonderful.”

  “I had a fuzzy dog when I was your age,” he replied. “When Moira told me that you wanted a bear like the one she had before she went into her shell, I thought this fellow felt better than the smooth bears.”

  He leaned down confidentially, and for a moment Tia was afraid that he was going to be patronizing just because she’d gone so enthusiastic over the toy.