The Ship Who Sang

by Anne McCaffrey

  ‘You should say, born with a caul.’

  Kira threatened Helva with the guitar, then made her inspection of the three holds.

  ‘This extra 15,000 will crowd us a little, with the 20,000 at Merak,’ Kira said as she worked.

  ‘Alioth is spatially aligned with Nekkar. We can make it there with time to spare. Then, hoiyotoho off on another stork run.’

  Kira straightened, wrinkling her nose in Helva’s direction.

  ‘Hoiyotoho is utterly inappropriate to a stork run.’

  ‘For you, maybe, but not for me. I am, after all, an armored maid.’

  ‘Ha!’ Kira fell silent as she peered through a magnifying lens at a joint.

  When the two had finished the inspection, Kira paused at the galley, reaching absently for coffee. She wandered, moody for the first time in nearly a week, into the main cabin and plunked herself down on the pilot’s chair, curling her feet under her and sitting quietly, only the vapor of the heating coffee moving.

  ‘Stock run!’ she said finally. ‘D’you realize, Helva, I’m the same ethnic group, too? Those pieces of life are the children of people like me. Only unlike me. Because they have left seed and I have none.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Helva snapped, hoping to ward off a Kiran explosion. ‘You made your RCA duty when you reached your majority, didn’t you?’

  ‘No,’ Kira snapped back. ‘No. I didn’t. I had met Thorn by then and I was going to have all my children. I didn’t need any agency to insure the propagation of those chromosomes that are essentially Kira Falernova Mirsky of Canopus. As a matter of fact,’ she said sardonically, ‘I even wrote a Dylan on the RCA, full of wit and drollery, with candid cracks about the uncanned child.’

  She swung the chair around to face Helva, her eyes narrowed in self-contempt.

  ‘One of the many items my so-censored biograph left out was that my only child died aborning, from his mother’s womb untimely ripped, ripping it and rendering her completely barren.’

  Kira spanned her tiny hips with slender hands. ‘No life in these loins, ever . . . not implanted nor impregnated. No nothing of Thorn or all we had together. That,’ and she snapped her fingers, ‘for our supreme egotistical self-assurance.’

  It was for such accidents that the RCA recommended seed donations from every young adult. It was pointless to remind Kira of this. She was all too patently aware of her folly.

  ‘That’s why I returned to medicine after Thorn’s death rather than the Service. But all my studies proved that there was no rebirth in me nor birth for me. Science can do many wonders, make many adjustments, but not that.’

  She sighed heavily but her bitterness was not as frantic as that first explosion. Helva wondered if Kira had resigned herself to barrenness as she had not, from appearances, resigned herself to living.

  ‘Which is why, dear Helva, it is ironic for me, of all people, to be assisting this particular cargo around the Great Wheel.’

  Helva refrained from any remarks. Kira finished her coffee and retired to rest. Within a few hours there would be Merak to deal with, then on to Alioth.

  They cleared Merak in record time, the technicians being both quick and careful. Alioth was only a few days onward before the last spatial hop to Nekkar. Scout and ship had now achieved a pleasant routine in which Helva filled gaps in her classical and ancient musical repertoire with Kira’s comprehensive acquaintance with folk music from old Terra and the early colonial periods of the now major worlds.

  Helva woke Kira just before touchdown on Alioth. The scout dressed quickly in a somber tunic, braiding her hair so closely to her scalp Helva wondered her head didn’t ache.

  Touchdown was not auspicious. To begin with, the spaceport was overshadowed by the jagged, glowing peaks of Alioth’s active continental spine. They were told to touch down some distance from the small rectangular building that housed what spaceport control and administration the inhospitable planet required. Kira protested they were too far from the building to effect a quick transfer and was brusquely informed she was to await the arrival of a ground vehicle. It took its time in arriving, a huge transport truck loaded with cowled figures who took positions around Helva’s base, elbow to elbow. Their belligerent attitude and presence seemed an insult to a ship bearing Helva’s markings.

  ‘What is the meaning of mounting a guard on a Scout Ship in Central Worlds Medical Service?’ Kira demanded in firm tones to the control tower.

  ‘For the protection of your cargo.’

  At this moment the charge officer of the guard contingent requested permission to enter the scout ship.

  ‘Well?’ Helva asked softly of Kira.

  ‘I don’t see we have much choice but I suggest you tape this and tight beam it back to Regulus.’

  ‘My thought, too,’ Helva agreed. ‘And I think I’ll play silent.’

  ‘A good idea,’ Kira said, adjusting a contact button on her cloak.

  There were many backward planets where the partnership of the mobile brawn scout and his brain ship were improperly understood. On such worlds it often had been to the advantage of the partners to keep the brain’s abilities unknown until needed, if needed. The button would allow Helva to keep in sight and sound contact with Kira.

  The officer, an ominous, tall figure in his black cowl, appeared at the airlock, which Helva opened. The man, his face unseen, towered above Kira. A thin hand was extruded from the draperies and made a gesture toward breast and hidden face that could be interpreted as a salute of sorts.

  Kira responded in kind, waiting for him to speak first.

  ‘Second Watch officer Noneth,’ he finally intoned.

  ‘Medical Scout Kira of Canopus,’ Kira replied with dignity. Helva did not fail to note that the girl clung to her planetary designation, rather than a ship-partner identity as KH-834.

  ‘Your presence is required at High Temple to discuss the donation,’ Noneth said in hollow, measured tones.

  ‘Time is of the essence in a transfer of this nature,’ Kira began smoothly.

  ‘Time,’ intoned the officer, ‘is at the disposal of Him Who Orders. It is at his command you are to come.’

  ‘The seed is ready for shipment?’ Kira asked, insistent on some information.

  A shudder rippled the fabric surrounding the figure of Noneth.

  ‘Do not blaspheme.’

  ‘Unintentional, I assure you,’ Kira said, calmly refusing to offer further apology.

  ‘Come,’ ordered the officer in a voice of command that crackled with authority.

  ‘He Who Orders bids you come, woman,’ a sepulchral, harsh voice echoed shrilly through the tiny cabin.

  Kira won another mark of respect from Helva when she gave no indication of surprise at that awesome bellow. The scout’s eyes flicked briefly over the smooth oval fastening on Noneth’s hood. Helva as well as Kira recognized the device for what it was, a two-way control similar to the one Kira wore: a type issued only to Service personnel.

  There’d be a nova of a scandal when Central Worlds discovered who was distributing these restricted designs on backward planets.

  ‘The order must be obeyed. The Temple itself has spoken,’ Noneth cried in a voice quavering with reverence. ‘Dally, not.’

  The temple was feminine, Helva realized, having appraised the timbre of the voice.

  ‘I am under orders,’ Kira said evasively.

  ‘That is the Eternal Truth,’ Noneth replied, nodding solemn accord, as Kira apparently responded in a manner consonant with his religion. He raised his hand in a stylized gesture and added, ‘May Death come to you at the moment of your triumph.’

  Kira, about to make a graceful obeisance, halted and stared up at the hidden face, her eyes wide with shock.

  ‘May Death come to you at the moment of your triumph?’ she murmured. The blood drained from her face.

  ‘Is not Death the greatest of blessings?’ asked the priest, mildly surprised at her ignorance.

  It was all Hel
va could do to remain silent but a deep instinct stifled her half-formed groan of protest. It took little extra interpolation to surmise that death on Alioth would be the greatest of blessings; relief from the terrible drudgery, the grim and gloomy aspect of the planet, with its hovering, smoking mountains. The normal perils of molten mining plus the daily anxiety of a volcano emerging and erupting underfoot had emphasized the brevity of existence until the emphasis had swung toward death as a welcome respite from grinding toil and miserable conditions. Was Cencom out of its alleged mind when it did not ban Kira from landing on Alioth, knowing her compulsion? She wouldn’t even have to strain against her conditioning.

  ‘Yes, Death is the greatest of blessings. That is Eternal Truth,’ Kira repeated, trancelike.

  ‘Come with me,’ Noneth enjoined, gently persuasive, his gaunt hand beckoning to Kira. ‘Come,’ echoed the sepulchral voice greedily.

  The ground car had no sooner left the base of the KH-834 than the guard began to move.

  ‘She will see Him Who Orders,’ one sighed enviously. ‘The bareface harlot will be given an unjust reward. Now! Up the lift and let us secure the cargo. Think of it! Thousands more to die to expiate the sin against Him Who Orders.’

  That was sufficient for Helva. She locked the lift controls and slid the airlock securely tight. Curse, hammer, buffet though those Aliothites might, Helva was invulnerable against such weapons as Alioth’s technology possessed. She activated the tight beam to Cencom. Alioth would rue the day its religious hierarchy decided to hijack the cargo of a Service ship – much less kidnap its brawn.

  Dispassionately Helva took account of the matter of Kira’s departure. The girl had, in the extremes of grief, sought death. But Helva doubted Kira would betray her service. For one thing, she couldn’t, although the Aliothites didn’t realize the ship was capable of independent thought and action. Having enticed the brawn away, they assumed the ship was grounded, impotent, and they could take their time forcing Kira to accede to their designs on the embryos.

  I could just leave, Helva thought. If death is the reward these zealots seek, then I don’t need to have any compunctions about burning the guard detail to its due merits. But I cannot leave Kira. Not yet. I have time. What was the matter with Cencom? They were never around when you needed them! And why in the name of little apples did they permit Kira to land on a death-dedicated planet? You idiot, Helva told herself, because they didn’t know that’s the way the religion turned.

  The ground rumbled beneath her. Far to the north a fireball zoomed heavenward, bursting in a shower of lighted fragments. Other fireworks followed, as well as more ominous movement beneath Helva’s tailfins. She held herself ready for an instant liftoff if her balance was shaken beyond the normal recovery in her stabilizers. Somewhere to the northeast, another volcano answered the eruption of the first.

  Helva saw the ground car carrying Kira reach the central building and she muttered ineffective mental commands for Kira to snap out of her trance and switch on the contact button.

  The guard, impervious to the massed eruptions, went right on trying to force the lift mechanism. Their cowls kept falling from their faces and they kept replacing them as if a bare face were indecent. The red light from the fireballs that continued to light the sky illuminated gaunt, ascetic faces, dirty with ingrained volcanic dusts, dull-eyed from improper nutrition and continual fatigue.

  Kira alighted from the transport and, flanked by guards, was escorted to a smaller vehicle that disappeared from Helva’s augmented vision into the complex of city buildings. The transport turned back to the field and Helva.

  An enterprising guard urged his fellows to bring a gantry rig against the ship. Slowly and with much effort, they wheeled the cumbersome frame from a far side of the field.

  Helva watched the performance with grim amusement. Their own fault for insisting we set down so far from the facilities of the port. Perhaps they couldn’t see in the gloom of Alioth’s perpetual twilight that the lock was closed tight, too.

  She tried to rouse Cencom on the tight beam, cursing at that delay because she was so worried about not reaching Kira on the contact.

  ‘Contact button,’ she muttered to herself, recalling the anomalous appearance of one on Noneth’s hood. Now, if it were a Service issue or a true imitation, she ought to be able to use it. That Temple female had utilized one to second Noneth’s commands to Kira.

  Helva wasted no time in throwing open the wide-wave on the contact band. As hastily, she closed it, dazed with the resultant chaotic kaleidoscope of sight and sound that besieged her. Mentally reeling from the impact on her senses, she wondered painfully how she had managed to get several hundred thousand contacts at once. Quickly she scanned the scurrying guards, still trying to wrestle the gantry frame to her. Each one had a button securing his hood at the neck.

  ‘Great glittering galaxies,’ moaned Helva. ‘This religion must be composed of schizoids to deal with that kind of chaos.’

  Holding tightly to her sanity, Helva opened the band a fraction, wincing, at the confusion of sound and sight. She tried to focus in on one contact alone but felt herself drowning in the myriad pictures that returned. It was like trying to focus on a pinpoint through the faceting of a fly’s eyeball.

  Grimly she refined vision to one small area, forcing herself to accept only one of the conflicting and overlapping images that returned to her. She cut out the sound completely. Fortunately every wearer in the selected segment was converging on one location, crossing a huge plaza, crowded with gyrating, swaying cowled figures, their robes flapping around them as they approached the wide deep steps that led up the side of the dead volcano. This was the ziggurat Helva had noticed in the tape clip.

  Suddenly everything and every figure tilted. It took Helva a moment to realize she too was rocking with earthquake as three more volcanoes spewed out their guts skyward. She waited, alert, lest the instability of the spaceport field became too critical for her to remain planet bound.

  An ecstatic, moaning roar wafted through the air, now hazy as the earth’s minute shifts released gases from narrow fissures in the floor of the plaza. Helva, already confused, did not at first catch the significance of the gas or the fact that the ululation was reaching her ship’s outer ears, not issuing from the dumb contact circuits.

  Helva increased power in the tight beam, desperately trying to raise Cencom over the volcanic interferences. Simultaneously she cut in the narrow contact, anxious not to lose Kira. Everyone in the plaza was now waving arms aloft, hoods thrown back from joyful faces raised to the spark-filled, gas-fogged skies. Then the Aliothites wheeled, ducking their heads to breathe deeply of the rising gas fumes. Incredulous, Helva watched, as more and more people pushed and crowded around the fissures; inhaling deeply, staggering away; faces rapt, arms aloft, movements erratic. Then Helva realized that the gases were either hallucinogenic or euphoric, doubly dangerous at a time of mass volcanic eruptions. Yet the exposed open plaza was rapidly filling with bodies either already intoxicated or frantically trying to be.

  The significance of gas eruptions in the plaza before the Temple of this demoniac religion was not lost on Helva. Obviously, this effect was known and calculated by the temple hierarchy. Helva was revolted and enraged by such depravity and she redoubled her efforts to locate Kira and her escort. They would have to leave the vehicle and enter the plaza on the south side. One multiexposed group caught her searching eyes. There couldn’t be two such slender hoodless figures on this mad planet. Kira was just entering the plaza, her inexorable progress toward the ziggurat steps impeded by the jerking, jolting freak-inebriates.

  Fully alarmed, Helva widened the band, trying to skip from contact to contact, forward toward Kira. The effect was maddening, like seeing thousands of film tapes all interlocking fuzzily, playing on the same master screen. For the first time in her life, Helva felt vertigo and nausea. Her sense of impending disaster deepened as she tried to reach Kira before she entered the Temple of Death
. Placed as it was on the top of the massive ziggurat, right next to the old volcano, it must be heavy with the hallucinogenic gases. Helva thanked the Service for the small blessing that Kira had been desensitized to such hazards as hallucinogens, but the girl was as immobile in her trance as if she were susceptible.

  Helva groaned at her inability to reach Kira, spiritually or physically.

  ‘Ooooh,’ an answering groan rose from the multitude. ‘The Temple weeps,’ the garbled cry went up from a thousand throats. Even the guards at the spaceport, wrestling with the gantry frame, echoed the chant.

  ‘Oh,’ Helva gasped. Her surmise that she was broadcasting to all the Aliothites, was confirmed as this new exclamation was repeated by the crowd. She had been mistaken for the voice of their Temple female.

  Oblivious to the multivision, Helva stared at the cylindrical top of the Temple and recognized what she had not consciously identified before. The cylinder was a ship on its long axis, nose and fins buried in the lava of the old eruption. The Temple entrance was nothing more than an airlock, and by the entrance, Helva could trace the faintly visible designation of a Central Worlds brain ship.

  As clear as the day she had heard it, the day Jennan had died, Helva recalled what Silvia had told her about another grief-stricken ship. This had to be the 732. And what better place to mourn than a red-dark violent world, so conducive to the immolation of grief? Or had the 732 aimed at the fiery maw of the erupting volcano and somehow been deflected from the seething cone at the last moment, lodged immovably in the lava-flow at its base? Had the 732 turned her tortured mind on the grim world and urged thousands to die in expiation for the death of her beloved?

  The requirements of duty were suddenly lucid to Helva and the plans to discharge it sprang to mind. With the genius of sheer desperation, Helva began to sing, her voice a deep, caressing baritone, coloring her resonances with minor-keyed longing, suspending reason to the dictates of sheer instinct.

  ‘Death is mine, mine forever,’

  she intoned, repeating the phrase a third above as the responsive Aliothites chanted the first phrase in obedient mimicry. It was like having an incredibly well-rehearsed world-chorus at your disposal. Helva exploited the phenonemon ruthlessly.