The Ship Who Searched b-3

by Anne McCaffrey

  Movement outside alerted her to Donnings arrival; to her annoyance, he operated the lift manually instead of letting her handle it.

  To her further annoyance, he treated her like some kind of superior AI; he was obviously annoyed with having to go through an interview in the first place and wanted to be elsewhere.

  "Donning Chang y Narhan, reporting," he said in a bored tone of voice. "As ordered." He proceeded to rattle off everything that had been in the short file, as if she couldn't access it herself. He did not sit down. He paid no attention to Ted.

  "Have you any questions?" he asked, making it sound as if questions would only mean that she had not been paying attention.

  "Only a few," she replied. "What is your favorite composer? Do you play chess?"

  He answered her questions curtly, as if they were so completely irrelevant that he couldn't believe she was asking them.

  She obliged him by suggesting that he could leave after only a handful of questions; he took it with bad grace and left in a hurry, an aroma of scorched ego in his wake.

  "Garrison Lebrel," CenCom said, as Donning vacated the lift.

  Well, Garrison was possible. Good academic marks, not as high as Donning's but not bad. Interest in archeology... she perked up when she saw what he was interested in. Nonhumans, especially presumed extinct space-going races, including the EsKays!

  Garrison let her bring him in and proved to be talkative, if not precisely congenial. He was very intense.

  "We'll be spending a lot of time in transit," he said. "I wasn't able to keep up with the current literature in archeology while I was in the Academy, and I planned to be doing a lot of reading."

  Not exactly sociable. "Do you play chess?" she asked hopefully. He shook his head. "But I do play sennet. That's an ancient Egyptian game. I have a very interesting software version I could install; I doubt it would take you long to learn it, though it takes a lifetime to master."

  The last was said a bit smugly. And there had been no offer from him to learn her game. Still, she did have access to far more computing power than he did; it wouldn't take her more than an hour to learn the game, if that.

  "I see that your special interest is in extinct space going races," she ventured. "I have a very strong background in the Salomon-Kildaire Entities."

  He looked skeptical. "I think Doctor Russell Gaines-Barklen has probably dealt with them as fully as they need to be, although we'll probably have some chances to catch things survey teams miss. That's the benefit of being trained to look for specifics."

  She finally sent him back with mixed feelings. He was arrogant, no doubt about it. But he was also competent He shared her interests, but his pet theories differed wildly from hers. He was possible, if there were no other choices, but he wasn't what she was looking for.

  "Chria Chance is up next," CenCom said when she reported she was ready for the next. "But you won't like her."

  "Why, because she's got a name that's obviously assumed?" Neither CenCom nor the Academy cared what you called yourself, provided they knew the identity you had been born with and the record that went with it. Every so often someone wanted to adopt a pseudonym. Often it was to cover a famous High Family name, either because the bearer was a black sheep, or because (rarely) he or she didn't want special treatment But sometimes a youngster got a notion into his or her head to take on a holostar-type name.

  "No," CenCom replied, not bothering to hide his amusement. "You won't like her because, well, you'll see."

  Chria's records were good, about like Garrison's, with one odd note in the personality profile. Nonconformist, it said.

  Well, there was nothing wrong with that. Pota and Braddon were certainly not conformists in any sense.

  But the moment that Chria stepped into the central room, Tia knew that CenCom was right.

  She wore her Academy uniform, all right, but it was a specially tailored one. Made entirely of leather; real leather, not synthetic. And she wore it entirely too well for Tia to feel comfortable around her. For the rest, she was rapier-thin, with a face like a clever fox and hair cut aggressively short. Tia already felt intimidated, and she hadn't even said anything yet!

  Within a few minutes worth of questions, Chria shook her head. "You're a nice person, Tia," she said forthrightly, "and you and I would never partner well. I'd run right over you, and you'd sit there in your column, fuming and resentful, and you'd never say a word." She grinned with feral cheer. "I'm a carnivore, a hunter. I need someone who'll fight back! I enjoy a good fight!"

  "You'd probably have us go chasing right after pirates," Tia said, a little resentful already. "If there were any in the neighborhood, you'd want us to look for them!"

  "You bet I would," Chria responded without shame.

  A few more minutes of exchange proved to Tia that Chria was right. It would never work. With a shade of regret, Tia bade her farewell. While she liked a good argument as well as the next person, she didn't like for arguments to turn into shouting matches, which was precisely what Chria enjoyed. She claimed it purged tensions.

  Well, maybe it did. And maybe that was why her favorite form of music, to the exclusion of everything else, was opera. She was a fanatic, to put it simply, And Tia, well, wasn't.

  But there was certainly a lot of emotion-purging and carrying on in those old operas. She had the feeling that Chria fancied herself as a kind of latter-day Valkyrie. Hoy-yo to-ho.

  She reported her rejection to CenCom, with the recommendation that she thought Chria Chance had the proper mental equipment to partner a ship in the Military Courier Service. "Between you, me, and the airwaves," CenCom replied., "that's my opinion, too. Bloodthirsty wench. Well, she'll get her chance. Military got your classmate Pol, and he's just as bloody minded as she is. I'll see the recommendation goes in; meanwhile, next up is Harkonen Carl-Ulbright."

  Carl was a disappointment. Average grades, and while he was congenial, Tia knew that she would run right over the top of him. He was shy, hardly ever ventured an opinion, and when he did, he could be induced to change it in an eye-blink. "However, Carl," she said, just before he went to the lift, making no effort to hide his discouragement. "My classmate Raul is the XR One-Oh-Two-Nine. I think you two would get along splendidly. I'm going to ask CenCom to set up your very next interview with him, he was just installed today and I know he hasn't got a brawn yet. Tell him I sent you."

  That cheered up the young man considerably. He would be even more cheered when he learned that Raul had a Singularity Drive ship. And Tia would bet that his personality profile and Raul's matched to a hair. They'd make a great team, especially when their job included carrying VIP passengers. Neither of them would get in the way or resent it if the VIPs ignored them.

  "I got all that, Tia," CenCom said as soon as the boy was gone. "Consider it logged. They ought to make you a Psych; a Counselor, at least. It was good of you to think of Raul; none of us could come up with a match for him, but we were trying to match him with females."

  If she'd had hands, she would have thrown them up. "Become a Psych? Saints and agents of grace defend us!" she quipped. "I think not! Who's next?"

  "Andrea Polo y De Gras," CenCom said. "You won't like her, either. She doesn't want you."

  "With the Polo y De Gras name, I'm not surprised," Tia sighed. "Wants something with a little more zing to it than A and E, hmm? Would she be offended if I agreed with her before she bothered to come out here?"

  "I doubt it," CenCom replied, "but let me check." A pause, and then he came back. "She's very pleased, actually. I think that she has something cooking with the Family, and the strings haven't had time to get pulled yet. Piff. High Families. I don't know why they send their children to Space Academy in the first place."

  Tia felt moved to contradict him. "Because some of them do very well and become a credit to the Services," she replied, with just a hint of reproach.

  "True, and I stand corrected. Well, your last brawn candidate is the late Alexander Joli-Chanteu."
The cheer in his voice told her that he was making a bad joke out of the situation.

  "Late, hmm? That isn't going to earn him any gold stars in his Good-Bee Book," Tia said, a bit acidly. Her parents' fetish for punctuality had set a standard she expected those around her to match. Especially brawn candidates.

  Well, then at least go over his records. She scanned them quickly and came up, confused. When Alexander was good, he was very, very, good. And when he was bad, he was abysmal. Often in the same subject. He would begin a class with the lowest marks possible, then suddenly catch fire, turn around, and pull a miraculous save at the end of the semester. Erratic performances, said his personality profile. Tia not only agreed, she thought that the evaluator was understating the case.

  CenCom interrupted her confusion. "Whoop! He got right by me! Here he comes, Tia, ready or not!"

  Alexander didn't bother with the lift, he ran up the stairs, arriving out of breath, with longish hair mussed and uniform rumpled.

  That didn't earn him any points either, although it was better than Chria's leather.

  He took a quick look around to orient himself, then turned immediately to face the central column where she was housed, a nicety that only Carl and Chria had observed. It didn't matter, really, and a lot of shell-persons didn't care, so long as the softpersons faced one set of 'eyes' at least, but Tia felt, as Moira did, that it was more considerate of a brawn to face where you were, rather than empty cabin.

  "Hypatia, dear lady, I am most humbly sorry to be late for this interview," he said, slowly catching his breath. "My sensei engaged me in a game of Go, and I completely lost all track of time."

  He ran his blunt-fingered hand through his unruly dark hair and grinned ruefully, little smile-crinkles forming around his brown eyes. "And here I had a perfectly wonderful speech all memorized, about how fitting it is that the lady named for the last librarian at Alexandria and the brawn named for Alexander should become partners, and the run knocked it right out of my head!"

  Well! He knows where my name came from! Or at least he had the courtesy and foresight to look it up. Hmm. She considered that for a moment, then put it in the 'plus' column. He was not handsome, but he had a pleasant, blocky sort of face. He was short, well, so was the original Alexander, by both modern standards and those of his own time. She decided to put his general looks in the 'plus' column too, along with his politeness. While she certainly wasn't going to choose her brawns on the basis of looks, it would be nice to have someone who provided a nice bit of landscape.

  'Minus', of course, were for being late and very untidy when he finally did arrive.

  "I think I can bring myself to forgive you," she said dryly. "Although I'm not certain just what exactly detained you."

  "Ah, besides a hobby of ancient history, Terran history, that is, especially military history and strategy, I, ah, I cultivate certain kinds of martial arts." He ran his hand through his hair again, in what was plainly a nervous gesture. "Oriental martial arts. One soft form and one hard form. Tai Chi and Karate. I know most people don't think that's at all necessary, but, well, A and E Couriers are unarmed, and I don't like to think of myself as helpless. Anyway, my sensei, that's a martial arts Master, got me involved in a game of Go, and when you're playing against a Master, there is nothing simple about Go." He bowed his head a moment and looked sheepish. "I lost all track of time, and they had to page me. I really am sorry about making you wait."

  Tla wasn't quite sure what to make of that. "Sit down, will you?" she said absently, wondering why, with this fascination with things martial and military, he hadn't shown any interest in the Military Services. "Do you play chess as well?"

  He nodded. "Chess, and Othello, and several computer games. And if you have any favorites that I don't know, I would be happy to learn them." He sat quietly, calmly, without any of Garrison's fidgeting. In fact, it was that very contrast with Garrison that made her decide resolutely against that young man. A few months of fidgeting, and she would be ready to trank him to keep him quiet.

  "Why Terran history?" she asked, curiously. "That isn't the kind of fascination I'd expect to find in a, a space-jockey."

  He grinned. It was a very engaging, lopsided grin. "What, haven't you interviewed my classmate Chria yet? Now there is someone with odd fascinations!" Behind the banter, Tia sensed a kind of affection, even though the tips of his ears went lightly red. "I started reading history because I was curious about my name, and got fascinated by Alexander's time period. One thing led to another, and the next thing I knew, every present I was getting was either a historical holotape or a bookdisk about history, and I was actually quite happy about the situation."

  So he did know the origin of her name. "Then why military strategy?"

  "Because all challenging games are games of strategy," he said. "I, ah, have a friend who's really a big games buff, my best friend when I was growing up, and I had to have some kind of edge on him. So I started studying strategy. That got me into The Art of War and that got me into Zen which got me into martial arts." He shrugged. "There you have it. One neat package. I think you'd really like Tai Chi, it's all about stress and energy flow and patterns, and it's a lot like Singularity mechanics and, "

  "I'm sure," she interrupted, hauling him verbally back by the scruff of his neck. "But why didn't you opt for Military Service?"

  "The same reason I studied martial arts. I don't like being helpless, but I don't want to hurt anyone," he replied, looking oddly distressed. "Both Tai Chi and Karate are about never using a bit more force than you need to, but Tai Chi is the essence of using greater force against itself, just like in The Art of War, and,"

  Once again she had to haul him back to the question. He tended to go off on verbal tangents, she noticed. She continued to ask him questions, long after the time she had finished with the other brawns, and when she finally let him go, it was with a sense of dissatisfaction. He was the best choice so far, but although he was plainly both sensitive and intelligent, he showed no signs at all of any interest in her field. In fact, she had seen and heard nothing that would make her think he would be ready to help her in any way with her private quest.

  As the sky darkened over the landing field, and the spaceport lights came on, glaring down on her smooth metal skin, she pondered all of her choices and couldn't come up with a clear winner. Alex was the best, but the rest were, for the most part, completely unsuitable. He was obviously absentminded, and his care for his person left a little to be desired. He wasn't exactly slovenly, but he did not wear his uniform with the air of distinction that Tia felt was required. In fact, on him it didn't look much like a uniform at all, more like a suit of comfortable, casual clothes. For the life of her, she couldn't imagine how he managed that.

  His tendency to wander down conversational byways could be amusing in a social situation, but she could see where it could also be annoying to, oh, a Vegan, or someone like them. No telling what kind of trouble that could lead to, if they had to deal with AIs, who could be very literal-minded.

  No, he wasn't perfect. In fact, he wasn't even close.

  "XH One-Oh-Three-Three, you have an incoming transmission," CenCom broke in, disturbing her thoughts. "Hold onto your bustle, lady, it's the Wicked Witch of the West, and I think someone just dropped a house on her sister."

  Whatever allusions the CenCom operator was making were lost on Tia, but the sharply impatient tone of her supervisor was not. "XH One-Oh-Three-Three, have you selected a brawn yet?" the woman asked, her voice making it sound as if Tia had been taking weeks to settle on a partner, rather than less than a day.

  "Not yet, Supervisor," she replied, cautiously. "So far, to be honest, I don't think I've found anyone I can tolerate for truly long stretches of time."

  That wasn't exactly the problem, but Beta Gerold y Caspian wouldn't understand the real problem. She might just as well be Vegan. She made very few allowances for the human vagaries of brawns and none at all for shell-persons.

  "Hyp
atia, you're wasting time," Beta said crisply. "You're sitting here on the pad, doing nothing, taking up a launch-cradle, when you could already be out on courier-supply runs."

  "I'm doing my best," Tia responded sharply. "But neither you nor I will be particularly happy if I toss my brawn out after the first run!"

  "You've rejected six brawns that all our analysis showed were good matches for your personality," Beta countered. "All you'd have to do is compromise a little."

  Six of those were matches for me? she thought, aghast. Which ones? The tofu-personalities? The Valkyrie warrior? Spirits of space help me, Garrison? I thought I was nicer and more interesting than that!

  But Beta was continuing, her voice taking on the tones of a cross between a policeman and a professorial lecturer. "You know very well that it takes far too long between visits for these Class One digs. It leaves small parties alone for weeks and months at a time. Even when there's an emergency, our ships are so few and so scattered that it takes them days to reach people in trouble, and sometimes an hour can make all the difference, let alone a day! We needed you out there the moment you were commissioned!"