The Ship Who Searched. Anne Mccaffrey

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CHAPTER ONE

THE SHIP WHO SEARCHED

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portraye

in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people i

incidents is purely coincidental.

portions thereof in any form.

A Baen Books Original

Baen Publishing Enterprises

P.O. Box 1403

Riverdale, NY 10471

ISBN: 0-671-72129-1

Cover art by Stephen Hickman

First printing, August 1992

Second printing, April 1994

Distributed by Paramount Publishing

1230 Avenue of the Americas

New York, NY 10020

Printed in die United States of America

The ruby light on the corn unit was blinking when

Hypatia Cade emerged from beneath the tutor's hood,

with quadratic equations dancing before her seven-

year-old eyes. Not the steady blink that meant a

recorded message, nor the triple-beat that meant Mum

or Dad had left her a note, but the double blink with a

pause between each pair that meant there was some-

one Upstairs, waiting for her to open the channel.

Someone Upstairs meant an unscheduled ship —

Ha knew very well when all the scheduled visits were;

they were on the family calendar and were the first

things reported by the AI when they all had breakfast

That made it Important for her to answer, quickly, and

not take the time to suit up and run to the dig for Mum

or Dad. It must not have been an emergency, though,

or the AI would have interrupted her lesson.

She rubbed her eyes to rid them of the dancing vari-

ables, and pushed her stool over to the corn-console so

she could reach all the touch-pads when she stood on

it. She would never have been able to reach things sit-

ting in a chair, of course. With brisk efficiency that

someone three times her age might have envied, she

cleared the board, warmed up the relay, and opened

the line.

'Exploratory Team Cee-One-Two-One," she enun-

oated carefully, for the microphone was old, and often

'ost anything not spoken clearly. "Exploratory Team

^ee-One-Two-One, receiving. Come in, please. Over."

She counted out the four-second lag to orbit and

2 Anne McCaffrey 6? Mercedes Lackey

back, nervously. One-hypotenuse, Two-hypotenuse, Three-

hypotenuse, Four-hypotenuse. Who could it be? They

didn't get unscheduled ships very often, and it meant

bad news as often as not. Planet pirates, plague, or

slavers. Trouble with some of the colony-planets. Or

worse — artifact thieves in the area. A tiny dig like this

one was all too vulnerable to a hit-and-run raid. Of

course, digs on the Salomon-Kildaire Entities rarely

yielded anything a collector would lust after, but would

thieves know that? Tia had her orders if raiders came

and she was alone — to duck down the hidden escape

tunnel that would blow the dome; to run to the dark lit-

tle hidey away from the dig that was the first thing

Mum and Dad put in once the dome was up....

"This is courier TM Three-Seventy. Tia, dearest, is

that you? Don't worry, love, we have a non-urgent mes-

sage run and you're on the way, so we brought you

your packets early. Over." The rich, contralto voice was

a bit flattened by the poor speaker, but still welcome

and familiar, Tia jumped up and down a bit on her

stool in excitement.

"Moira! Yes, yes, it's me! But — " She frowned a litde.

The last time Moira had been here, her designation had

been CM, not TM. "Moira, what happened to Charlie?"

Her seven-year-old voice took on the half-scolding tones

of someone much older. "Moira, did you scare away

another brawn? Shame on you! Remember what they told

you when you kicked Ari out your airlock! Uh—over."

Four seconds; an eternity. "I didn't scare him away,

darling," Moira replied, though Tia thought she

sounded just a litde guilty. "He decided to get married,

raise a brood of his own, and settle down as a dirtsider.

Don't worry, this will be the last one, I'm sure of it.

Tomas and I get along famously. Over."

"That's what you said about Charlie," Tia reminded

her darkly. "And about Ari, and Lilian, and Jules,

and — "

THE SHIP WHO SEARCHED 3

She was still reciting names when Moira interrupted

her. "Turn on the landing beacon, Tia, please. We can

talk when I'm not burning fuel in orbital adjustments."

Her voice turned a little bit sly. "Besides, I brought you

a birthday present. That's why I couldn't miss stopping

here. Over."

As if a birthday present was going to distract her

from the litany of Moira's foiled attempts to settle on a

brawn!

Well — maybe just a little.

She turned on the beacon, then feeling a little smug,

activated the rest of the landing sequence, bringing up

the pad lights and guidance monitors, then hooking in

the AI and letting it know it needed to talk to Moira's

navigational system. She hadn't known how to do all

that, the last time Moira was here. Moira'd had to set

down with no help at all.

She leaned forward for the benefit of the mike. "All

clear and ready to engage landing sequence, Moira.

Uh — what did you bring me? Over,"

"Oh, you bright litde penny!" Moira exclaimed, her

voice brimming with delight. "You've got the whole

system up! You have been learning things since I was

here last! Thank you, dear—and you'll find out what I

brought when I get down there. Over and out."

Oh well, she had tried. She jumped down from her

stool, letting the AI that ran the house and external sys-

tems take over the job of bringing the brainship in. Or

rather, giving the brainship the information she

needed to bring herself in; Moira never handed over

her helm to anyone if she had a choice in the matter.

That was part of the problem she'd had with keeping

brawns. She didn't trust them at the helm, and let them

know that. Ari, in particular, had been less than

amused with her attitude and had actually tried to dis-

able her helm controls to prove he could pilot as well as

she.

4 AmwMcCaffrey&Mercedes Lackey

Now, the next decision: should she suit up and fetch

Mum and Dad? It was no use trying to get them on the

com; they probably had their suit-speakers off. Even

though they weren't supposed to do that And this wasn't

an emergency; they would be decidedly annoyed if she

buzzed in on them, and they found out it was just an

unscheduled social call from a courier ship, even if it

was Moira. They might be more than annoyed if they

were in the middle of something important, like

documenting a find or running an age-assay, and she

joggled their elbows.

Moira didn't say it was important She wouldn't have

talked about errant brawns and birthday presents if

what she carried was really, really earth-shaking.

Tia glanced at the clock; it wasn't more than a half

hour until lunch break. If there was one thing that Pota

Andropolous-Cade (Doctor of Science in Bio-Foren-

sics, Doctor of Xenology, Doctor of Archeology), and

her husband Braddon Maartens-Cade (Doctor of

Science in Geology, Doctor of Physics in Cosmology,

Associate Degree in Archeology, and licensed

Astrogator) had in common — besides daughter

Hypatia and their enduring, if absent-minded love for

each other — it was punctuality. At precisely oh-seven-

hundred every "morning," no matter where they

were, the Cades had breakfast together. At precisely

twelve-hundred, they arrived at the dome for lunch

together. The AI saw that Hypatia had a snack at six-

teen-hundred. And at precisely nineteen-hundred, the

Cades returned from the dig for dinner together.

So in thirty minutes, precisely, Pota and Braddon

would be here. Moira couldn't possibly land in less

than twenty minutes. The visitor — or visitors; there

was no telling if there was someone on board besides

the brawn, the yet-unmet Tomas — would not have

long to wait.

She trotted around the living room of the dome;

THE SHIP WHO SEARCHED 5

picking up her books and puzzles, straightening the

pillows on the sofa, turning on lights and the holo-

scape 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-l, a setup program

Braddon had logged for her for munchies for visitors.

She decided on music on her own; theArkenstone Suzte,

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 mosdy 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

6 Anne McCaffrey 6? Mercedes Lackey

afterthought. Or perhaps an "accident" — she'd over-

heard that before, too.

She knew very well what was meant by the "after-

thought 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 over-

heard 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 ob-

vious 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

THESHIPWHOSEARCHED 7

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 rudeobout some-

one 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 exacdy what it was Dad had warned Doctor

Julius about, Tia never discovered.

The remarks about being "unplanned" or an "acci-

dent" 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.

8 Arme McCaffrey & Mercedes Lackey

If anything, sometimes Mum and Dad explained a

little too much. She distincdy 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 approach-

ing a new and potentially dangerous species. The

feeling seemed to be mutual. And so for, other children

had proven to be rather boring creatures. Their inter-

ests 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 profes-

sorial 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

THE SHIP WHO SEARCHED

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 chal-

lenged 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 grown-

ups 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

Anne McCaffrey &? Mercedes Lackey

ground-based radio link so that she can join the con-

versation."

"Go ahead, Socrates," she told the AI. That was the

problem with AIs; if they didn't already have instruc-

tions, you had to tell them to do something before diey

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 Awn," 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 diose fines

for bouncing brawns," Tia began, when the inner air-

lock 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 die 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

THE SHIP WHO SEARCHED

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 die 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

i*1 — " 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,

Anne McCaffrey fc? Mercedes Lackey

THE SHIP WHO SEARCHED

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 herj

favorite story, reciting it exactly as Pota had told it to>

her, as it was written in the history database. "It was1

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 con-

tained '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 Chris-

tian 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, f shan't

evenmention the disease!"

"I don't imagine that ever entered their minds/'

Tbmas 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 pur-

pose 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.

Anne McCaffrey & Mercedes Lackey

THE SHIP WHO SEARCHED

"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 Utde child would have. "Thank

you, Moira," she said to the corn-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 wrap-

ping 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.

"I have to tell you the truth, Tia, I really enjoyed dig-

ging into all those toy shops," he whispered. "A lot of

that stuffis wasted on children. I found some logic puz-

zles you just wouldn't believe and a set of magic tricks I

couldn't resist, and I'm afraid I spent far too much

money on spaceship models."

She giggled. "I won't tell if you don't," she replied, in

a conspiratorial whisper.

"Pota and Braddon are in the airlock," Socrates

interrupted. "Shall I order the kitchen to make lunch

now?"

"So why exacdy are you here?" Tomas asked, after all

the initial topics of conversation had been exhausted,

and the subject turned, inevitably, to Pota and

Braddon's work. He gestured at the landscape beyond

the viewport; spectacular mountains, many times taller

than anything found on Terra or any other inhabited

planet. This little ball of rock with a thin skin of dirt was

much like the wilder parts of Mars before it had been

terraformed, and had a sky so dark at midday that the

sun shared the sky with the stars. "I wouldn't expect to

find much of anything out there for an archeologist —

it's the next thing to airless, after all. The scenery is

amazing, but that's no reason to stay here — "

Braddon chuckled, the generous mouth in his

lantern-jawed face widening in a smile, and Tia hid a

gnn. Whether or not Tomas knew it, he had just

Amu McCaffrey & Mercedes Lackey

triggered her Bad's lecture mechanism. Fortunately,

Braddon had a gift for lecturing. He was always a

popular speaker whenever he could be tempted to go

to conferences.

"No one expected to find anything on planets like

this one, Tomas," Braddon replied, leaning back

against the supporting cushions of the sofa and tuck-

ing his hands behind his head. "That's why the

Salomon-Kildaire culture is so intriguing. James

Salomon and Tory Kildaire discovered the first build-

ings on the fourth moon of Beta Orianis Three —

and there have never been any verifiable artifacts un-

covered in what you and I would call 'normal'

conditions. Virtually every find has been on airless or

near-airless bodies. Pota and I have excavated over a

dozen sites, doing the Class One studies, and they're

all like this one."

Tomas glanced out the viewport again. "Surely that

implies that they were — "

"Space-going, yes," Pota supplied, nodding her

head so that her gray-brown curls vibrated. "I don't

think there's any doubt of it. Although we've never

found any trace of whatever it was they used to move

them from colony to colony — but that isn't the real

mystery."

Braddon gestured agreement. "The real mystery is

that they never seem to have set up anythmgpermanent.

They never seem to have spent more than a few

decades in any one place. No one knows why they left,

or why they came here in the first place."

Tomas laughed. "They seem to have hopped planets

as often as you two," he said. "Perhaps they were

simply doing what you are doing — excavating an ear-

lier culture and following it across the stars."

Braddon exclaimed in mock horror. "Please!" he

said. "Don't even think that!"

Pota only laughed. "If they had been, we'd have

THE SHIP WHO SEARCHED

found signs of that," she told both of them, tapping

Braddon's knee in playful admonition. "After all, as

bleak as these places are, they preserve things wonder-

fully. If the EsKays had been archeologists, we'd have

found the standard tools of the trade. We break and

wear out brushes and digging tools all the time, and

just leave them in our discard piles. They would have

done the same. No matter how you try to alter it, there

are only so many ways you can make a brush or a

trowel — "

"There would be bad castings," Tia piped up. "You

throw out bad castings all the time, Mum; if they were

archeologists, we'd find a pile of bad castings some-

where."

"Bless me, Tia's right," Braddon nodded. "There

you are, Tomas; irrefutable proof."

"Good enough for me," Tomas replied, good-

naturedly.

"And if that idea was true, there also ought to be

signs of the earlier culture, shouldn't there?" Moira

asked. "And you've never found anything mixed in

with the EsKay artifacts."

"Exactly so," Pota replied, and smiled. "And so,

Tomas, you see how easily an archeologist's theories

can be disposed of."

"Then I'm going to be thankful to be Moira's

partner," Tomas said gracefully, "and leave all the

theorizing to better heads than mine."

After a while, the talk turned to the doings of the

Institute, and both professional and personal news of

Pota and Braddon's friends and rivals. Tia glanced at

the clock again; it was long past time when her parents

would have gone back to the dig — they must have

decided to take the rest of the day off.

But these weren't subjects that interested her, espe-

cially not when the talk went into politics, both of the

Institute and the Central Worlds government. She

Arme McCaffrey &? Mercedes Lackey

THE SHIP WHO SEARCHED

took her bear, politely excused herself, and went back

to her room.

She hadn't had a chance to really look him over

when Tomas gave him to her. The last time Moira had

come to visit, she'd told Tia some stories about what

going into the shellperson program had been like, for

unlike most shelipersons, she hadn't been popped into

her shell until she'd been nearly four. Until that time,

there had been some hope that there would have been

a palliative for her particular congenital condition —

premature aging that had caused her body to resemble

a sixty-year-old woman at the age of three. But there

was no cure, and at four, her family finally admitted it.

Into the shell she went, and since there was nothing

wrong with her very fine brain, she soon caught up

and passed by many of her classmates that had been in

their shells since birth.

But one of the toys she'd had — her very favorite, in

fact — had been a stuffed teddy bear. She'd made up

adventures for Ivan the Bearable, sending him in a

troika across the windswept steppes of Novi Gagarin,

and she'd told Tia some of those stories. That, and the

Zen of Pooh book Moira brought her, had solidified a

longing she hadn't anticipated.

For Tia had been entranced by the tales and by Pooh

—and had wanted a bear like Moira's. A simple toy that

did nothing, with no intel-chips; a toy that couldn't talk,

or teach, or walk. Something that was just there to be

hugged and cuddled; something to listen when she

didn't want anything else to overhear....

Moira had promised. Moira didn't forget

Tia closed the door to her room and paged the AI.

"Socrates, would you open a link to Moira in here for

me, please?" she asked. Moira would be perfectly!

capable of following the conversation in the other!

room and still talk to her in here, too.

"Tia, do you really like your present?" Moira asked

anxiously, as soon as the link had been established.

"He's wonderful," Tia answered firmly. "I've even

got a name for him. Theodore Edward Bear."

"Or Ted E. Bear for short?" Moira chuckled. "I like

it. It fits him. He's such a solemn-faced little fellow. One

would think he was a software executive. He looks like

a bear with a great deal on his mind.'*

Tia studied Ted carefully. Moira was right; he was a

sober little bear, with a very studious expression, as if

he was listening very hard to whatever was being said.

His bright blue coloration in no way contradicted the

seriousness of his face, nor did the frivolous little red

shirt he was wearing with the blue and yellow Courier

Service cirde-and-lightning-bolt on the front

"Is there anything going on that I need to know,

Moira?" she asked, giving over her careful examina-

tion of her new friend and hugging him to her chest

instead.

"The results of your last batch of tests seems to have

satisfied all the Psych people out there that you're a

perfecdy well-balanced and self-sufficient girl," Moira

replied, knowing without Tia prompting her just what

was on her mind. "So there's no more talk of making

your parents send you to boarding school."

Tia sighed with relief; that had been a very real

worry the last time Moira had been here. The ship had

left with the results of a battery of tests and psych-

profiles that had taken two days to complete.

MI have to tell you that I added to that," Moira said,

slyly. "I told them what kind of a birthday present you

had asked for from me."

"What did they say?" Tia asked, anxiously. Had they

thought she was being immature—or worse yet, that it

meant she harbored some kind of neurosis?

"Oh, it was funny. They were questioning me on

open com, as if I was some kind of AI that wouldn't

respond to anything that wasn't a direct question, so of

Anne McCaffrey &? Mercedes Lackey

course I could hear everything they said. There was

silence for a moment, and then the worst of the lot

finally blurted out, 'Good heavens, the child is normal,'

as if he'd expected you to ask for a Singularity

simulator or something." Moira chuckled.

"I know who it was, too," Tia said shrewdly. "It was

Doctor Phelps-Pittman, wasn't it?"

"Dead on the target, wenchette," Moira replied, still

chuckling. "I still don't think he's forgiven you for beat-

ing him in Batde Chess. By the way, what is your secret?"

"He moves the Queen too often," Tia said absendy.

"I think he likes to watch her hips wiggle when she

walks. It's probably something Freudian."

A splutter of static was all that followed that

pronouncement, as Moira lost control of the circuit

briefly. "My, my," she replied, when she came back on-

line. "You are a litde terror. One might almost suspect

you of having as much control as a shellperson!"

Tia took that in the spirit it was meant, as a compli-

ment.

"I promise not to tell him your weakness," the ship

continued, teasingly.

"What's that?" Tia was surprised; she hadn't known

she had one.

"You hate to see the pawns sacrificed. I think you feel

sorry for the little guys."

Tia digested this in silence for a moment, then

nodded reluctant agreement. "I think you're right,"

she admitted. "It seems as if everybody can beat them

up, and it doesn't seem fair."

"You don't have the problem with an ordinary

holoboard game," Moira observed casually.

"That's because they're just litde blobby pieces on a

holoboard game," Tia explained. "In Battle Chess

they're litde pikemen. And they're cute." She giggled.

"I really love it when Pawn takes Knight and he hits the

Knight with the butt of his pike right in the — "

THE SHIP WHO SEARCHED

"And that's why you frighten old Phelps-Pittman,"

Moira said severely, though Tia could tell she didn't

mean it. "He keeps thinking you're going to do the

same to him."

"Well, I won't have to see old sour-fece for another

year and a half," she said comfortably." Maybe I can fig-

ure out how to act like a normal girl by then."

"Maybe you can," Moira replied. "I wouldn't put

even that past you. Now, how about a game of Battle

Chess? Ted Bear can referee."

"Of course," she agreed. "You can use the practice.

I'll even spot you a pawn."

"Oh come now! You haven't gotten that much better

since I saw you last." At Tia's continued silence, the

ship asked, tentatively, "Have you?"

Tia shrugged. "Check my record with Socrates," she

suggested.

There was silence as Moira did just that. Then. "Oh,

decom it," she said in mock disgust. "You really are

exasperating. I should demand that you spot me two

pawns."

"Not a chance," Tia replied, ordering the AI to set

up the game, with a Battle Chess field in front of her.

"You're taking advantage enough of a child as it is."

"Taking advantage of a child? Ha!" Moira said ironi-

cally. "You're not a child. I'm beginning to agree with

Phelps-Pittman. You're an eighty-year-old midget in a

little-girl costume."

"Oh, all right," Tia said, good-naturedly. "I won't

give you another pawn, but I will let you have white."

"Good." Moira studied the analog of the board in

her memory, as Tia studied the holoboard in front of

her. "All right, unnatural child. Have at ye!"

Moira and Tomas couldn't stay long; by dinner the

ship had lifted, and the pad was empty — and the Cade

family was back on schedule.

Anne McCaffrey &? Mercedes Lackey

Pota and Braddon spent the evening catching up

with the message-packets Moira had brought them —

mostly dispatches from friends at other digs, more

scholarly papers in their various fields, and the latest in

edicts from the Institute. Since Tia knew, thanks to

Moira, that none of those edicts concerned her, she was

free to watch one of the holos Moira had brought for

her entertainment. All carefully screened by the

teachers at the Institute, of course, who oversaw the

education of every child that was on-site with its

parents. But even the teachers didn't see anything

wrong with history holos, provided they were properly

educational and accurate. The fact that most of these

holos had been intended for adult viewing didn't seem

to bother them.

Perhaps it was just as well that the Psychs had no idea

what she was watching. They would probably have

gone into strong hysterics.

Moira had an uncanny ability to pick out the ones

that had good scripts and actors — unlike whoever it

was that picked out most of the holos for the Remote

Educational Department

This one, a four-part series on Alexander the Great,

looked especially good, since it covered only the early

parts of his life, before he became a great leader. Tia felt

a certain kinship for anyone who'd been labeled

"precocious"; and although she already knew that

Alexander's childhood had been far from happy, she

was looking forward to viewing this.

Having Ted beside her to whisper comments to

made it even more fun.

At the end of the first part, even though she was fas-

cinated, she virtuously told Socrates to shut everything

down and went into the main room to say good-night

to her Mum and Dad. The next courier wasn't due for

a while, and she wanted to make her treats last as long

as possible.

THESHIPWHOSEARCHED 23

Both of them were so deep in their readers that she

had to shake their elbows to get them to realize she was

there, but once they came out of their preoccupied

daze, they gave her big hugs and kisses, with no sign of

annoyance at being interrupted.

"I have a really good Mum and Dad," she told Ted

before drifting off to sleep. "I really, really do. Not like

Alexander...."

The next day, it was back to the usual schedule.

Socrates woke her, and she got herself cleaned up and

dressed, leaving Ted to reside on the carefully made

bed until she returned. When she entered the main

room, Pota and Braddon were already there, blinking

sleepily over steaming cups of coffee.

"Hello, darling," Pota greeted her as she fetched her

milk and cereal from the kitchen. "Did you enjoy

Alexander?"

"We-ell, it was interesting," Tia said truthfully. "And I

liked the actors and the story. The costumes and the

horses were really stellar! But his mother and father

were kind of— odd — weren't they?"

Braddon looked up from his coffee with his curly

dark hair over one brown eye, and gave his daughter a

wry grin. "They were certifiable crazy-cases by our

standards, pumpkin," he replied. "But after all, there

wasn't anyone around to apply those standards back

then."

"And no Board of Mental Health to enforce them,"

Pota added, her thin, delicate face creasing with a

puckish smile. "Remember, oh curious little chick, they

were not the ones that had the most influence on

Alexander. That was left to his tutors —Aristotle, of

course, being the main one — and nurses. I think he

succeeded in spite of his parents, personally, and not

because of them."

Tia nodded sagely. "Can I come help at the dig

Anm McCajfrey &f Mercedes Lackey

THE SHIP WHO SEARCHED

today?" she asked eagerly. This was one of the best

things about the fact that her parents had picked the

EsKays to specialize in. With next to no atmosphere,

there were no indigent life-forms to worry about. By

the time Tia was five, she had pressure-suit protocol

down pat, and there was no reason why she couldn't

come to the digs, or even wander about within

specified limits on her own. "The biggest sandbox in

the universe," Braddon called it; so long as she stayed

within eye- and earshot, neither of them minded

having her about outside.

"Not today, dearest," Pota said apologetically. "We've

found some glassware, and we're making holos. As

soon as we're done with that, we'll make the castings,

and after that you can come run errands for us." In the

thin atmosphere and chill of the site, castings were

tricky to make; one reason why Pota discarded so many.

But no artifact could be moved without first making a

good casting of it, as well as holos from all possible

angles — too many times the artifacts crumbled to

nothing, despite the most careful handling, once they

were moved.

She sighed; holos and castings meant she couldn't

even come near the site, lest the vibrations she made

walking interfere. "All right," she agreed. "Can I go

outside, though? As long as I stay dose to the airlock?"

"Stay dose to the lock and keep the emergency cart

nearby, and I don't see any reason why you can't play

outside," Pota said after a moment. Then she smiled.

"And how is your dig coming?"

"You mean really, or for pretend?" she asked.

"Pretend, of course," said Braddon. "Pretend is

always more fun than really. That's why we became ar-

cheologists in the first place — because we get to play

pretend for months at a time until we have to be

serious and write papers!"

He gave her a conspiratorial grin, and she giggled.

"We-ell," she said, and drew her face down into a

frown just like Doctor Heinz Marius-Llewellyn, when

he was about to put everyone to sleep. "I've found the

village site of a race of flint-using primitives who were

used as slave labor by the EsKays atyour site."

"Have you!" Pota fell right in with the pretense, as

Braddon nodded seriously. "Well that certainly

explains why we haven't found any servos. They must

have used slaves to do all their manual labor!"

"Yes. And the Flint People worshipped them as gods

from the sky," Tia continued. "That was why they

didn't revolt; all the slave labor was a form of worship.

They'd go back to their village and then they'd try to

make flint tools just like the things that the sky-gods

used. They probably made pottery things, too, but I

haven't found anything but shards."

"Well, pottery doesn't hold up well in conditions like

this," Pota agreed. "It goes brittle very quickly under

the extremes of surface temperature. What have you

got so far?"

"A flint disrupter-pistol, a flint wrist-corn, a flint

flashlight, and some more things," she said solemnly. "I

haven't found any arrowheads or spear-points or

things like that, but that's because there's nothing to

hunt here. They were vegetarians, and they ate noth-

ing but lichen."

Braddon made a face. "Awful. Worse than the food at

the Institute cafeteria! No wonder they didn't survive

— the food probably bored them to death!"

Pota rose and gathered up their plates and cups,

stowing them neatly in the dishwasher. "Well, enjoy

your lessons, pumpkin. We'll see you at lunch."

She smiled, hugged them both goodbye before they

suited up, then went off to the schoolroom.

That afternoon, once lessons were done, she took

down her own pressure-suit from the rack beside the

Anne McCaffrey fc? Mercedes Lackey

airlock inner door. Her suit was designed a little dif-

ferently from her parents', with accordion folds at

wrists and elbows, ankles and knees, and at the waist, to

allow for the growth-spurts of a child. This was a brand

new suit, for she had been about to outgrow the last

one just before they went out on this dig. She liked it a

lot better than the old one; the manufacturer of the last

one had some kind of stupid idea that a child's suit

should have cavorting flowers with smiling faces all

over it. She had been ashamed to have anyone but her

parents see her in the awful thing. She thought it made

her look like a little clown.

It had come second-hand from a child on a Class

Three dig — like most of the things that the Cades got.

Evaluation digs simply didn't have that high a priority

when it came to getting anything other than the bare

essentials. But Tia'd had the bright idea when her

birthday came around to ask her parents' superiors at

the Institute for a new pressure-suit And when it came

out that she was imitating her parents, by creating her

own little dig-site, she had so tickled them that they

actually sent her one. Brand new, good for three or

four years at least, and the only difference between it

and a grown-up suit was that hers had extra helmet

lights and a com that couldn't be turned off, a locator-

beacon that was always on, and bright fluorescent

stripes on the helmet and down the arms and legs. A

small price to pay for dignity.

The flowered suit had gone back to the Institute, to

be endured by some other unfortunate child.

And the price to be paid for her relative freedom to

roam was waiting in the airlock. A wagon, child-sized

and modified from the pull-wagon many children had

as toys — but this one had powered crawler-tracks and

was loaded with an auxiliary power unit and air-pack

and full face-mask. If her suit failed, she had been

drilled in what to do so many times she could easily

THE SHIP WHO SEARCHED

have saved herself when asleep. One, take a deep

breath and pop the helmet. Two, pull the mask on,

making sure the seals around her face were secure.

Three, turn on the air and Four, plug into the APU,

which would keep the suit heat up with the helmet ofE

Then walk — slowly, carefully, to the airlock, towing

the wagon behind. There was no reason why she

should suffer anything worse than a bit of frostbite.

It had never happened. That didn't mean it

wouldn't. Tia had no intention of becoming a tragic

tale in the newsbytes. Tragic tales were all very well in

drama and history, but they were not what one wanted

in real life.

So the wagon went with her, inconvenient as it was.

The filters in this suit were good ones; the last suit

had always smelled a little musty, but the air in this one

was fresh and clean. She trotted over the uneven sur-

face, towing the cart behind, kicking up little puffs of

dust and sand. Everything out here was very sharp-

edged and dear; red and yellow desert, reddish-purple

mountains, dark blue sky. The sun, Sigma Marinara,

hung right above her head, so all the shadows were

tiny pools of dark black at the bases of things. She

hadn't been out to her "site" for several weeks, not

since the last time Mum and Dad had asked her to stay

away. That had been right at the beginning, when they

first got here and uncovered enough to prove it was an

EsKay site. Since that time there had been a couple of

sandstorms, and Tia was a bit apprehensive that her

"dig" had gotten buried. Unlike her parents' dig, she

did not have force-shields protecting her trench from

storms.

But when she reached her site, she discovered to her

amazement that more was uncovered than she had left.

Instead of burying her dig in sand, the storm had

scoured the area clean —

There were several likely-looking lumps at the

Anne McCaffrey &? Mercedes Lackey

THE SHIP WHO SEARCHED

farther end of the trench, all fused together into a

bumpy whole. Wonderful! There would be hours of

potential pretend here; freeing the lumps from the

sandy matrix, cleaning them off, figuring out what the

Flint People had been trying to copy....

She took the tools her parents had discarded out of

the wagon; the broken trowel that Braddon had

mended for her, the worn brushes, the blunted probes,

and set to work.

Several hours later, she sat back on her heels arid

looked at her first find, frowning. This wasn't a lump of

flint after all. In fact, it seemed to be some kind of

layered substance, with the layers fused together. Odd,

it looked kind of wadded up. It certainly wasn't any

kind of layered rock she'd ever seen before, and it

didn't match any of the rocks she'd uncovered until

now. :

She chewed her lower lip in thought and stared at itj;

letting her mind just drift, to see if it could identify whalj

kind of rock it was. It didn't look sedimentary. ]

Actually, it didn't look much like a rock at all....

Not like a rock. What if it isn't a rock?

She blinked, and suddenly knew what it did look

Layers of thin cloth or paper, wadded up, then d

carded.

Finagle! Have I—

She gently — very gently — pried another lump off

the outcropping, and carefully freed it of its gritty coat-

ing. And there was no doubt this time that what she had

was the work of intelligent hands. Under the layer of

half-fused sand and flaking, powdery dust, gleamed a

spot of white porcelain, with the matte edge of a break

showing why it had been discarded.

Oh, decom — I found the garbage dump!

Or, at least, she had found a little trash heap.

That was probably it; likely there was just this lump of discard

and no more. But anything the EsKays left behind was

important, and it was equally important to stop digging

now, mark the site in case another sandstorm came up

and capriciously buried it as it had capriciously

uncovered it, and bring some evidence to show Mum

and Dad what she had found.

Except that she didn't have a holo-camera. Or any-

thing to cast with.

Finally she gave up trying to think of what to do.

There was only one thing for it Bring her two finds in-

side and show them. The lump of fabric might not

survive the touch of real air, but the porcelain thing

surely would. Porcelain, unlike glass, was more

resilient to the stresses of repeated temperature

changes and was not likely to go to powder at the first

touch of air.

She went back inside the dome and rummaged

around for a bit before returning with a plastic food

container for the artifacts, and a length of plastic pipe

and the plastic tail from a kite-kit she'd never had a

chance to use. Another well-meant but stupid gift from

someone Dad worked with; someone who never once

thought that on a Mars-type world there weren't very

many opportunities to fly kites....

With the site marked as securely as she could

manage, and the two artifacts sealed into the plastic

tub, she returned to the dome again, waiting

impatiently for her parents to get back.

She had hoped that the seal on the plastic tub would

be good enough to keep the artifacts safely protected

from the air of the dome. She knew as soon as the air-

lock pressurized, though, that her attempt to keep

them safe had failed. Even before she pulled off her

helmet, the external suit-mike picked up die hiss of air

leaking into the container. And when she held the plas-

uc tub up to the light, it was easy enough to see that one

°f the lumps had begun to disintegrate. She pried the

Anri£ McCaffiey &? Mercedes Lackey

lid off for a quick peek, and sneezed at the dust The

wadded lump was not going to look like much when

her parents got home.

Decom it, she thought resentfully. That's not fair!

She put it down carefully on the countop; if she

didn't jar it, there might still be enough left when Mum

and Dad got back in that they would at least be able to

tell what it had been.

She stripped out of her suit and sat down to wait. She

tried to read a book, but she just couldn't get interested, j

Mum and Dad were going to be so surprised — and

even better, now the Psychs at the Institute would have

no reason to keep her away from the Class Two site

anymore — because this would surely prove that she

knew what to do when she accidentally found some

thing. The numbers on the clock moved with

agonizing slowness, as she waited for the moment

when they would finally return.

The sky outside the viewport couldn't get much

darker, but the shadows lengthened, and the light

faded. Soon now, soon —

Finally she heard them in the outer lock, and her

heart began to beat faster. Suddenly she was no longer

so certain that she had done the right thing. What if

they were angry that she dissected the first two

artifacts? What if she had done the wrong thing in

moving them?

The "what ifs" piled up in her head as she waited for

the lock to cycle.

Finally the inner door hissed, and Braddon and Pota

came through, already pulling off their helmets and

continuing a high-speed conversation that must have

begun back at the dig.

" — but the matrix is all wrong for it to be a food*

preparation area — "

" — yes, yes," Pota replied impatiently, " but what

about the integument—"

THE SHIP WHO SEARCHED

"Mum!" Tia said, running up to them and tugging

it her mother's elbow. "I've found something!"

"Hello, pumpkin, that's very nice," her mother

-eplied absently, hugging her, and going right on with

her conversation. Her intense expression showed that

ihe was thinking while she spoke, and her eyes never

wandered from her husband's face — and as for Brad-

ion, the rest of the world simply did not exist.

"Mum!" Tia persisted. "I've found an artifact!"

"In a moment, dear," Pota replied. "But what

about—*

"MUMf'Tia shouted, disobeying every rule of not

interrupting grown-ups in desperation, knowing from

all the signs that she would never get their attention

otherwise. Conversations like this one could go on for

hours. "Fve found an artifact!"

Both her parents stopped their argument in mid-

sentence and stared at her. Silence enveloped the

room; an ominous silence. Tia gulped nervously.

"Tia," Braddon finally said, disapproval creeping

Jito his voice. "Your mother and I are in the middle of a

i'ery important conversation. This is not the time for

pretend."

"Dad, it's not pretend!" she said insistently, pointing

:o her plastic box. "It's not! I found an artifact, and

chere's more — "

Pota raised an eyebrow at her husband and

shrugged. Braddon picked up the box, carelessly, and

Ha winced as the first lump inside visibly disintegrated

more.

i am going to respect your intelligence and

integrity enough to assume that you think you found an

artuact," Braddon replied, prying the lid from the con-

tainer. "But Tia, you know better than to — "

He glanced down inside — and his eyebrows arched

upward in the greatest show of surprise that Tia had

-ver seen him make.

Anne McCaffrey &? Mercedes Lackey

THE SHIP WHO SEARCHED

Pota had hugged her. "What I mean, pumpkin, is

that there is a very good chance that we'll stay on here

— as the dig supervisors! An instant promotion from

Class One supervisor to Class Three supervisor!

There'll be better equipment, a better dome to live in

— you'll have some playmates — couriers will be by

every week instead of every few months — not to men-

tion the raises in pay and status! All the papers on this

site will go out under our names! And all because you

were my clever, bright, careful little girl, who knew

what she saw and knew when to stop playing!"

"Mum and Dad are really, really happy," she told

Ted, thinking about the glow of joy that had been on

both their faces when they finished the expensive link

to the nearest Institute supervisor. "I think we did a

good thing. I think maybe you brought us luck, Ted."

She yawned. "Except about the other kids coming. But

we don't have to play with them if we don't want to, do

we?"

Ted agreed silendy, and she hugged him again. "I'd

rather talk to you, anyway," she told him. "You never

say anything dumb. Dad says that if you can't say some-

thing intelligent, you shouldn't say anything; and

Mum says that people who know when to shut up are

the smartest people of all, so I guess you must be pretty

smart Right?"

But she never got a chance to find out if Ted agreed

with that statement, because at that point she fell right

asleep.

Over the course of the next few days, it became evi-

dent that this was not just an ordinary garbage dump;

Jfiis was one containing scientific or medical debris.

Jnat raised the status of the site from "important" to

priceless," and Pota and Braddon took to spending

every waking moment either at the site or preserving

and examining their finds, making copious notes, and

"I told you," Tia could not resist saying, triumphantly.

" — so they took the big lights out to the trench, and

the extra field-generators," she told Ted E. Bear after

she'd been put to bed for the night. "They were out

there for hours, and they let me wait up to hear what it

was. And it was, I did find a garbage dump! A big one,

too! Mum made a special call to the Institute, 'cause this

is the first really big EsKay dump anybody's ever

found."

She hugged Ted closer, basking in the warmth a

Pota's praise, a warmth that still lingered and made he

fed happy right down to her toes. "You did everythinj

exactly right with the equipment you had," Pota hai

told her. "I've had undergraduates that didn't do a

well as you did, pumpkin! You remember what I tot

you, when you asked me about why I wanted to fmi

garbage?"

"That we learn more from sentients' garbage thai

from anything other than their literature," she''

recited dutifully.

"Well," Pota had replied, sitting on the edge of he

bed and touching her nose with one finger, playfull]

"You, my curious little chick, have just upgraded thi

site from a Class One to a Class Three with four houl

of work! That's more than Braddon and I haveevi

done!"

"Does that mean that we'll be leaving?" she'd askej

in confusion.

"Eventually," Pota told her, a certain gloating glee ii

her voice. "But it takes time to put together a Clas

Three team, and we happen to be right here. You:

father and I will be making gigabytes of important dis

coveries before the team gets here to replace us. An<

with that much already invested — they may no

replace us!"

Tia had shaken her head, confused.

any number of speculations. They hardly ever saw Tia

anymore; they had changed their schedule so that they

were awake long before she was and came in long after

she went to bed.

Pota apologized—via a holo that she had left to play

for Tia as soon as she came in to breakfast this morning.

"Pumpkin," her image said, while Tia sipped her

juice. "I hope you can understand why we're doing

this. The more we find out before the team gets sent

out, the more we make ourselves essential to the dig,

the better our chances for that promotion." Pota's

image ran a hand through her hair; to Tia's critical

eyes, she looked very tired, and a bit frazzled, but fairly

satisfied. "It won't be more than a few weeks, I promise.

Then things will go back to normal. Better than nor-

mal, in fact. I promise that we'll have a Family Day

before the team gets here, all right? So start thinking

what you'd like to do."

Well, that would be stellar! Tia knew exactly what she

wanted to do — she wanted to go out to the mountains

on die big sled, and she wanted to drive it herself on the

way. 'I

"So forgive us, all right? We don't love you any Iess

and we think about you all the time, and we miss you

like anything." Pota blew a kiss toward the camera.

know you can take care of yourself; in fact, we're count-

ing on that. You're making a big difference to us. I was

you to know that. Love you, baby."

Tia finished her juice as the holo flickered out, and

certain temptation raised its head. This could be

really unique opportunity to play hooky, just a little bit

Mum and Dad were not going to be checking the tutor

to see how her lessons were going — and the Institute

Psychs wouldn't care; they thought she was to

advanced for her age anyway. She could even raid

library for the holos she wasn't precisely suppos

watch....

"Oh, Finagle," she said, regretfully, after a moment

It might be fun — but it would be gttilty fun. And

besides, sooner or later Mum and Dad would find out

what she'd done, andpmgf there would go the Family

Day and probably a lot of other privileges. She weighed

the immediate pleasure of being lazy and watching for-

bidden holos against the future pleasure of being able

to pilot the sled up the mountains, and the latter out-

ranked the former. Piloting the sled was the closest she

would get to piloting a ship, and she wouldn't be able to

do that for years and years and years yet.

And if she fell on her nose now, right when Mum and

Dad trusted her most—they'd probably restrict her to

the dome for ever and ever.

"Not worth it," she sighed, jumping down from her

stool. She frowned as she noticed that the pins-and-

needles feeling in her toes still hadn't gone away. It had

been there when she woke up this morning. It had

been there yesterday too, and the day before, but by

breakfast it had worn off.

Well, it didn't bother her that much, and it wouldn't

take her mind offher Latin lesson. Too bad, too.

"Boring language," she muttered. "Ick, ack, ock!"

Well, the sooner she got it over with, the better off

she'd be, and she could go back to nice logical quadratics.

The pins-and-needles feeling hadn't worn oflfby after-

noon, and although she felt all right, she decided that

since Mum and Dad were trusting her to do everything

right, she probably ought to talk to the AI about it

Socrates, engage Medic Mode, please," she said, sit-

*"£ d?wn reluctantly in the tiny medic station. She

"wwy didn't like being in the medic-station; it smelled of

^^nfectant and felt like being in a too-small pressure

^t. It was just about the size of a tiny lav, but some-

*™ng about it made \tfeel smaller. Maybe because it was

* inside. And of course, since it had been made for

Arme McCaffrey fcf Mercedes Lackey

adults, the proportions were all wrong for her. In order

to reach hand-plates she had to scoot to the edge of the

seat, and in order to reach foot-plates she had to get

right off the seat entirely. The screen in front of her lit

up with the smiling holo of someone that was supposed

to be a doctor. Privately, she doubted that the original

had ever been any closer to medicine than wearing the

jumpsuit. He just looked too — polished. Too trust-

worthy, too handsome, too competent. Any time there

was anything official she had to interface with that

seemed to scream trust me at her, she immediately dis-

trusted it and went very wary. Probably the original for

this holo had been an actor. Maybe he made adults feel

calm, but he made her think about the Psychs and their

too-hearty greetings, their nosy questions.

"Well, Tia," said the AI's voice — changed to that of

the "doctor." "What brings you here?"

"My toes feel like they're asleep," she said dutifully.

"They kind of tingle."

"Is that all?" the "doctor" asked, after a moment for

the AI to access his library of symptoms. "Are they

colder than normal? Put your hand on the hand-plate,

and your foot on the foot-plate, Tia."

She obeyed, feeling very like a contortionist

"Well, the circulation seems to be fine," the "doctor"

said, after the AI had a chance to read temperature and

blood pressure, both of which appeared in the upper

right-hand corner of the screen. "Have you any other

symptoms?"

"No," she replied. "Not really." The "doctor" froze

for a moment, as the AI analyzed all the other readings

it had taken from her during the past few days — what

she'd eaten and how much, what she'd done, her sleep-

patterns.

The "doctor" unfroze. "Sometimes when children

start growing very fast, they get odd sensations in their

bodies," the AI said. "A long time ago, those were called

THE SHIP WHO SEARCHED

'growing pains.' Now we know it's because sometimes

different kinds of tissue grow at different rates. I think

that's probably what your problem is, Tia, and I don't

think you need to worry about it. I'll prescribe some

vitamin supplements for you, and in a few days you

should be just fine."

"Thank you," she said politely, and made her escape,

relieved to have gotten off so lightly.

And in a few days, the pins-and-

go away, and she diought no more about it. Thought

no more, that is, until she went outside to her new

"dig" and did something she hadn't done in a year —

she fell down. Well, she didn't exactly fall; she thought

she'd sidestepped a big rock, but she hadn't. She

rammed her toes right into it and went heavily to her

knees.

The suit was intact, she discovered to her relief —

and she was quite ready to get up and keep going, until

she realized that her foot didn't hurt

And it should have, if she'd rammed it against the

outcropping hard enough to throw her to the ground.

So instead of going on, she went back to the dome

and pealed off suit and shoe and sock — and found her

foot was completely numb, but black-and-blue where

she had slammed it into the unyielding stone.

When she prodded it experimentally, she discovered

that her whole foot was numb, from the toes back to the

arch. She peeled off her other shoe and sock, and

found that her left foot was as numb as her right

"Decom it," she muttered. This surely meant

another check-in with the medic.

Once again she climbed into the claustrophobic little

closet at the back of the dome and called up the

"doctor."

"Still got pins-and-needles, Tia?" he said cheerfully,

as she wriggled on the hard seat

Anne McCaffrey ££ Mercedes Lackey

"No," she replied, "But I've mashed my foot some-

thing awful. It's all black-and-blue."

"Put it on the foot-plate, and I'll scan it," the "doctor"

replied. "I promise, it won't hurt a bit."

Of course it won't, it doesn't hurt now, she thought

resentfully, but did as she was told.

"Well, no bones broken, but you certainly did bruise

it!" the "doctor" said after a moment. Then he added

archly, "What were you doing, kicking the tutor?"

"No," she muttered. She really hated it when the Al

program made it get patronizing. "I stubbed it on a

rock, outside."

"Does it hurt?" the "doctor" continued, oblivious to

her resentment.

"No," she said shortly. "It's all numb."

"Well, if it does, I've authorized your bathroom to

give you some pills," the "doctor" said with cloying

cheer. 'Just go right ahead and take them if you need

them—you know how to get them."

The screen shut down before she had a chance to say

anything else. I guess it isn't anything to worry about, she

decided. The Al would have said something otherwise. It'll

probably go away.

But it didn't go away, although the bruises healed.

Before long she had other bruises, and the numbness

of her feet extended to her ankles. But she told herself

that the Al had said it would go away, eventually — and

anyway, this wasn't so bad, at least when she mashed

herself it didn't hurt.

She continued to play at her own little excavation,

the new one — which she had decided was a grave-site.

The primitives burned their dead though, and only

buried the ashes with their flint-replicas of the sky-

gods' wonderful things — hoping that the dearly

departed would be reincarnated as sky-gods and

return in wealth and triumph....

THE SHIP WHO SEARCHED

It wasn't as much fun though, without Mum and

Dad to talk to; and she was getting kind of tired of the

way she kept tripping and falling over the uneven

ground at the new "site." She hadn't damaged her new

suit yet, but there were sharp rocks that could rip holes

even in the tough suit fabric—and if her suit was torn,

there would go the promised Family Day.

So, finally, she gave up on it and spent her after-

noons inside.

A few nights later, Pota peeked in her room to see if

she was sail awake.

"I wanted you to know we were still flesh-and-blood

and not holos, pumpkin," her mum said, sitting down

on the side of her bed. "How are your excavations

coming?"

Tia shook her head. "I kept tripping on things, and I

didn't want to tear my suit," she explained. "I think

that the Flint People must have put a curse on their

grave-site. I don't think I should dig there anymore."

Pota chuckled, hugged her, and said, "That could

very well be, dear. It never pays to underestimate the

power of religion. When the others arrive we'll

research their religion and take the curse on; all right?"

"Okay," she replied. She wondered for a moment if

she should mention her feet—

But Pota kissed her and whisked out the door before

she could make up her mind.

Nothing more happened for several days, and she

got used to having numb feet. If she was careful to

watch where she stepped, and careful never to go

barefoot, there really wasn't anything to worry about.

And the Al had said it was something that happened to

other children.

Besides, now Mum and Dad were really finding

important things. In a quick breakfast-holo, a tired but

excited Braddon said that what they were uncovering

now might mean a whole lot more than just a

Arme McCaffrey Esf Mercedes Lackey

promotion. It might mean the establishment of a

fieldwide reputation.

Just what that meant, exactly, Tia wasn't certain—but

there was no doubt that it must be important or Braddon

wouldn't have been so excited about it. So she decided

that whatever was wrong with her could wait Itwouldn't

be long now, and once Mum and Dad weren't involved in

this day-and-night frenzy of activity, she could explain

everything and they would see to it that the medics gave

her the right shot or whatever it was that she needed.

The next morning when she woke up, her fingers

were tingling.

Tia sighed and took her place inside the medic

booth. This was getting very tiresome.

The AI ran her through the standard questions,

which she answered as she had before. "So now you

have that same tingling in your hands as you did in

your feet, is that right?" the "doctor" asked.

"That's right," she said shortly.

"The same tingling that went away?" the "doctor"

persisted.

"Yes," she replied. Should I say something about how it

doesn't tingle anymore, about how now it's numb? But the AI

was continuing.

"Tia, I can't really find anything wrong with you," it

said. "Your circulation is fine, you don't have a fever,

your appetite and weight are fine, you're sleeping

right. But you do seem to have gotten very accident

prone lately." The "doctor" took on a look of concern

covering impatience. "Tia, I know that your parents

are very busy right now, and they don't have time to

talk to you or play with you. Is that what's really wrong?

Are you angry with your parents for leaving you alone

so much? Would you like to talk to a Counselor?"

"No!" she snapped. The idea! The stupid AI actually

thought she was making this up to get attention!

THE SHIP WHO SEARCHED

"Well, you simply don't have any other symptoms,"

the "doctor" said, none too gently. "This hasn't got to

the point where I'd have to insist that you talk to a

Counselor, but really, without anything else to go on, I

can't suggest anything else except that this is a phase

you'll grow out of."

"This hasn't got to the point where Fd have to insist that you

talk to a Counselor." Those were dangerous words. The

AI's "Counselor" mode was only good for so much —

and every single thing she said and did would be

recorded the moment that she started "Counseling."

Then all the Psychs back at the Institute would be sent

the recordings via compressed-mode databurst — and

they'd be all over them, looking for something wrong

with her that needed Psyching. And if they found any-

thing, anything at all, Mum and Dad would get orders

from the Board of Mental Health that they couldn't

ignore, and she'd be shipped back to a school on the

next courier run.

Oh no. You don't catch me that easy.

"You're right," she said carefully. "But Mum and Dad

trust me to tell you everything that's wrong, so I am."

"All right then." The "doctor's" face lost that stern

look. "So long as you're just being conscientious. Keep

taking those vitamin supplements, Tia, and everything

will be fine."

But everything wasn't fine. Within days, the tingling

had stopped, to be replaced by numbness. Just like her

feet. She began having trouble holding things, and her

lessons took twice as long now, since she couldn't

touch-type anymore and had to watch where her

fingers went.

She completely gave up on doing anything that

required a lot of manual dexterity. Instead, she

watched a lot of holos, even boring ones, and played

a great deal of holo-chess. She read a lot too, from

the screen, so that she could give one-key page-

Anne McCaffrty ^Mercedes Lackey

turning commands rather than trying to turn paper

pages herself. The numbness stopped at her wrists,

and for a few days she was so busy getting used to

doing things without feeling her hands, that she

didn't notice that the numbness in her legs had

spread from her ankles to her knees....

Now she was afraid to go to die AI "doctor" program,

knowing that it would put her in for Counseling. She

tried looking things up herself in the database, but knew

diat she was going to have to be very sneaky to avoid trig-

gering flags in the AI. As the numbness stopped at die

knees, then began to spread up her arms, she kept celling

herself that it wouldn't, couldn't be much longer now.

Soon Mum and Dad would be done, and they would

know she wasn't making this up to get attention. Soon

she would be able to tell them herself, and diey'd make

the stupid medic work right. Soon.

She woke up, as usual, to hands and feet that acted

like wooden blocks at the ends of her limbs. She got a

shower — easy enough, since the controls were push-

button, then struggled into her clothing by wriggling

and using teeth and fingers that didn't really want to

move. She didn't bother too much with hair and teeth,

it was just too hard. Shoving her feet into slippers, since

she hadn't been able to tie her shoes for the past couple

of days, she stumped out into the main room of the

dome —

Only to find Pota and Braddon waiting there for her,

smiling over their coffee.

"Surprise!" Pota said cheerfully. "We've done just

about everything we can on our own, and we zipped

the findings off to the Institute last night. Now things

can get back to normal'"

"Oh Mum!" She couldn't help herself, she was so

overwhelmed by relief and joy diat she started to run

across the room to fling herself into their arms —

THE SHIP WHO SEARCHED

Started to. Halfway there, she tripped, as usual, and

went flying through the air, crashing into the table and

spilling the hot coffee all over her arms and legs.

They picked her up, as she babbled apologies about

her clumsiness. She didn't even notice what the coffee

had done to her, didn't even think about it until her

parents' expressions of horror alerted her to the feet

that there were burns and blisters already rising on her

lower arms.

"It doesn't hurt," she said, dazedly, without thinking,

just saying the first thing that came into her mind. "It's

okay, really, I've been kind of numb for a while so it

doesn't hurt, honest—"

Pota and Braddon both froze. Something about

their expressions startled her into silence.

"You don't feel anything?" Pota said, carefully. "No

pain, nodiing at all?"

She shook her head. "My hands and feet were tin-

gling for a while, and then they stopped and went

numb. I thought if I just waited you could take care of it

when you weren't so busy — "

They wouldn't let her say anything else. Within

moments they had established through careful prod-

ding and tests with the end of a sharp probe that the

numb area now ended at mid-thigh and mid-shoulder.

"How long has this been going on?" Braddon asked,

while Pota flew to the AI console to call up the medical

program the adults used.

"Oh, a few weeks," she said vaguely. "Socrates said it

wasn't anything, that I'd grow out of it. Then he acted

like I was making it up, and I didn't want him to get the

Psychs on me. So I figured I would...."

Pota returned at that moment, her mouth set in a

grim line. "You are going straight to bed, pumpkin,"

she said, with what Tia could tell was forced lightness,

"Socrates thinks you have pinched nerves; possibly a

spinal defect that he can't scan for. So you are going to

Arme McCaffny fef Mercedes Lackey

bed, and we are calling for a courier to come get you.

All right?"

Braddon and Pota exchanged one of those looks, the

kind Tia couldn't read, and Tia's heart sank. "Okay,"

she sighed with resignation. "I didn't mean to be such a

bother, honest, I didn't—"

Braddon scooped her up in his arms and carried her

off to her room. "Don't even thmk that you're being a

bother," he said fiercely. "We love you, pumpkin. And

we're going to see that you get better as quickly as we

can."

He tucked her into bed, with Ted beside her, and

called up a holo from the almost-forbidden collection.

"Here," he said, kissing her tenderly. "Your Mum is

going to be in here in a minute to put something on

those burns. Then we're going to spend all our time

making you the most disgustingly spoiled litde brat in

known space! What 3101* have to do is lie there and think

really hard about getting better. Is it a deal?"

"Sure, Dad," she replied, managing to find a grin for

him somewhere. "It's a deal."

• CHAPTERTWO

Because Tia was in no danger of dying — and

because there was no craft available to come fetch her

capable of Singularity Drive — the Al-drone that had

been sent to take her to a Central Worlds hospital took

two more weeks to arrive. Two more long, inter-

minable weeks, during which the faces of her Mum

and Dad grew drawn and frightened — and in which

her condition not only did not improve, it deteriorated.

By the end of that two weeks, she was in much worse

shape; she had not only lost all feeling in her limbs, she

had lost use of them as well. The clumsiness that had

begun when she had trouble with buttons and zippers

had turned into paralysis. If she hadn't felt the need to

keep her parents' spirits up, she'd have cried. She

couldn't even hold Ted anymore.

She joked about it to her Mum, pretending that she

had always wanted to be waited on hand and foot She

had to joke about it; although she was terrified, the look

of fear in her parents' eyes drove her own terrors away.

She was determined, absolutely determined, not to let

them know how frightened she was. They were

already scared enough — if she lost her courage, they

might panic.

The time crawled by, as she watched holo after holo

and played endless games of chess against Braddon,

and kept telling herself that once she got to the hospital

everything would be fine. Of course it would be fine.

There wasn't anything that a Central Worlds hospital

couldn't cure. Everyone knew that! Only congenital

Amu McCaffrey & Mercedes Lackey

defects couldn't be cured. But she had been fine, right

up until the day this started. It was probably something

stupid.

"Socrates says it has to be pinched nerves," Pota

repeated, for the hundredth time, the day the ship was

due. "Once they get you to the hospital, you'll have to

be really brave, pumpkin. They're probably going to

have to operate on you, and it's probably going to take

several months before you're back to normal — "

She brushed Tia's hair and tied it in back in a neat

tail, the way Tia liked it. "I won't be able to do any les-

sons, then, will I?" she asked, mostly to keep her

mother's mind busy with something trivial. Mwn doesn't

handle reality and real-time very well... Dad doesn't either.

"They're probably going to have me in a cast or some-

thing, and all dopey with pain-pills. I'm going to fall

behind, aren't I?"

"Well," Pota said, with false cheer, "yes, I'm afraid so.

But that will probably make the Psychs all very happy,

you know, they think that you're too far ahead as it is.

But just think — you'll have the whole library at the

hospital to dig into any time you want it!"

That was enough even to divert her for a minute.

The entire library at the hospital — magnitudes bigger

than any library they could carry with them. All the

holos she wanted to watch — and proper reading

screens set up, instead of the jury-rig Dad had put

together —

"They're here — " Braddon called from the outer

room. Pota compressed her lips into a line again and

lifted Tia out of the bed. And for the first time in weeks,

Tia was bundled into her pressure-suit, put inside as if

Pota was dressing a giant doll. Braddon came in to help

in a moment, as she tried to cooperate as much as she

could. She would be going outside again. This time,

though, she probably wouldn't be coming back. Not to

this dome, anyway.

THE SHIP WHO SEARCHED

"Wait!" she called, just before Pota sealed her in.

"Wait, 1 want my bear!" And at the look of doubt her

parents exchanged, she put on the most pleading

expression she could manage. "Please?" She couldn't

stand the idea that she'd be going off to a strange place

with nothing familiar or warm in it Even if she couldn't

hold him, she could still talk to him and feel his fur

against her cheek. "Please ? "

"All right, pumpkin," Pota said, relenting. "I think

there's just room for him in there with you." For-

tunately Ted was very squashable, and Tia herself was

slender. There was room for him in the body of the suit,

and Tia took comfort in the feel of his warm little bulk

against her waist.

She didn't have any time to think of anything else —

for at that moment, two strangers dressed in the white

pressure-suits of CenCom Medical came in. There was

a strange hiss at the back of her air-pack, and the room

went away.

She woke again in a strange white room, dressed in a

white paper gown. The only spot of color in the whole

place was Ted. He was propped beside her, in the crook

of her arm, his head peeking out from beneath the

white blanket

She blinked, trying to orient herself, and the cold

hand of fear damped down on her throat. Where was

she? A hospital room, probably, but where were Mum

and Dad? How did she get here so/orf? What had those

two strangers done to her?

And why wasn't she feeling better? Why couldn't she

feel anything'?

"She's awake," said a voice she didn't recognize. She

turned her head, which was all she could move, to see

someone in another white pressure-suit standing beside

her, anonymous behind a dark faceplate. The red cross

of Medical was on one shoulder, and there was a

Arme MeCaffrey &? Mercedes Lackey

name-tag over the breast, but she couldn't read it from

this angle. She couldn't even tell if the person in the suit

was male or female, or even human or humanoid.

Hie faceplate bent over her; she would have shrunk

away if she could, feeling scared in spite of herself—

the plate was so blank, so impersonal. But then she

realized that the person in the suit had bent down so

that she could see the face inside, past the glare of lights

on the plexi surface, and she relaxed a little.

"Hello, Hypatia," said the person — a lady, actually,

a very nice lady from her face. Her voice sounded kind

of tinny, coming through the suit speaker; a little like

Moira's over the ancient com. The comparison made

her feel a little calmer. At least the lady knew her name

and pronounced it right.

"Hello," she said cautiously. "This is the hospital,

isn't it? How come I don't remember the ship?"

"Well, Hypatia — may I call you Tia?" At Tia's nod,

the lady continued. "Tia, our first thought was that you

might have some kind of plague, even though your

parents were all right. The doctor and medic we sent

on the ship decided that it was better to be completely

safe and keep you and your parents in isolation. The

easiest way to do that was to put all three of you in cold

sleep and keep you in your suits until we got you here.

We didn't want to frighten you, so we asked your

parents not to tell you what we were going to do."

Tia digested that. "All right," she said, trying to be

agreeable, since there wasn't anything she could have

done about it anyway. "It probably would have gotten

really boring on the ship. There probably wasn't much

to watch or read, and they would have gotten tired of

playing chess with me."

The lady laughed. "Given that you would have

beaten the pants offboth of them, quite probably," she

agreed, straightening up a little. Now that Tia knew

there was a person behind the faceplate, it didn't seem

THE SHIP WHO SEARCHED

quite so threatening. "Now, we're going to keep you in

isolation for a while longer, while we see what it is that

bit you. You'll be seeing a lot of me — I'm one of your

two doctors. My name is Anna Jorgenson-Kepal, and

you can call me Anna, or Doctor Anna if you like, but I

don't think we need to be that formal. Your other doc-

tor is Rennet Uhua-Sorg. You won't be seeing much of

him until you're out of isolation, because he's a

paraplegic and he's in a Moto-Chair. Can't fit one of

them into a pressure-suit"

The holo-screen above the bed flickered into life,

and the head and shoulders of a thin, ascetic-looking

young man appeared there. "Call me Kenny, Ha," the

young man said. "I absolutely refuse to be stuffy with

you. I'm sorry I can't meet you in person, but it takes

forever to decontam one of these fardling chairs, so

Anna gets to be my hands."

"That's — your chair — it's kind of like a modified

shell, isn't it?" she asked curiously, deciding that if they

were going to bring the subject up, she wasn't going to

be polite and avoid it. "I know a shellperson. Moira,

she's a brainship."

"Dead on!" Kenny said cheerfully. "Medico on the

half-shell, that's me! I just had a stupid accident when I

was a tweenie, not like you, getting bit by alien bugs!"

She smiled tentatively. / think I'm going to like him." Did

anyone ever tell you that you look just like Amenemhat

the Third?"

His large eyes widened even more. "Well, no — that

is definitely a new one. I hope it's a compliment! One of

my patients said I looked like Largo Delecron, the

synthcom star, but I didn't know she thought Largo

looked like a refugee from a slaver camp!"

"It is," she assured him hastily. "He's one of my

favorite Pharaohs."

Til have to see if I can't cultivate the proper

Pharaonic majesty, then," Kenny replied with a grin.

AtmeMcCaffrq & Merceries Lackey

"It might do me some good when I have to drum some

sense into the heads of some of the Psychs around

here! They've been trying to get at you ever since we

admitted you."

If she could have shivered with apprehension, she

would have. "I don't have to see them, do I?" she asked

in a small voice. "They never stop asking stupid ques-

tions!"

"Absolutely not," Anna said firmly. "I have a double-

doctorate; one of them is in headshrinking. I am quite

capable of assessing you all by myself."

Tia's heart sank when Anna mentioned her degree

in Psych — but it rose the moment she referred to

Psych as "headshrinking." None of the Psychs who had

plagued her life until now ever called their profession

by something as frivolous as "headshrinking."

She patted Tia's shoulder. "Don't worry, Tia. It's my

opinion that you are a very brave young lady — a Btde

too responsible, but otherwise just fine. They spend too

much time analyzing children and not enough time

actually seeing them or paying attention to them." She

smiled inside her helmet, and a curl of hair escaped

down to dangle above her left eyebrow, making her

look a lot more human.

"Listen, Tia, there's a little bit of fur missing from

your bear, and a scrap of stuffing," Kenny said. "Anna

says you wouldn't notice, but I thought we ought to tell

you anyway. We checked him over for alien bugs and

neurotoxins, and he's got a dean bill of health. When

you come out of Coventry, we'll decontam him again to

be sure, but we know he wasn't the problem, in case you

were wondering."

She had wondered.... Moira wouldn't have done

anything on purpose, of course, but it would have been

horrible if her sickness had been due to Ted. Moira

would have felt awful, not to mention how Tomas

would feel.

THE SHIP WHO SEARCHED

"What's his name?" Anna asked, busying herself

with something at the head of the bed. Tia couldn't

turn her head far enough to see what it was.

"Theodore Edward Bear," she replied, surrep-

titiously rubbing her cheek against his soft fur. "Moira

gave him to me, because she used to have a bear named

Ivan the Bearable."

"Excellent name, Theodore. It suits him," Anna said.

"You know, I think your Moira and I must be about the

same age — there was a kind of fad for bears when I

was little. I had a really nice bear in a flying suit called

Amelia Bearhart." She chuckled. "I still have her,

actually, but she mostly sits on the bureau in my guest

room. She's gotten to be a very venerable matriarch in

her old age."

But bears weren't really what she wanted to talk

about. Now that she knew where she was, and that she

was in isolation. "How long am I going to be in here?"

she asked in a small voice.

Kenny turned very serious, and Anna stopped fid-

dling with things. Kenny sucked on his lower lip for a

moment before actually replying, and the hum of the

machinery in her room seemed very loud. "The Psychs

were trying to tell us that we should try and cushion

you, but — Tia, we think that you are a very unusual

girl. We think you would rather know the complete

truth. Is that the case?"

Would she? Or would she rather pretend —

But this wasn't like making up stories at a dig. If she

pretended, things would only seem worse when they

finally told her the truth, if it was bad.

"Ye-es," she told them both, slowly. "Please."

"We don't know," Anna told her. "I wish we did. We

haven't found anything in your blood, and we're only

just now trying to isolate things in your nervous sys-

tem. But—well, we're assuming it's a bug that got you,

a proto-virus, maybe, but we don't know, and that's the

Anne McCaffrey &? Mercedes Lackey

truth. Until we know, we won't know if we can fix you

again."

Not when. If.

The possibility that she might sto)i like this for the rest

of her life chilled her.

"Your parents are in isolation, too," Kenny said, has-

tily, "but they are one hundred percent fine. There's

nothing wrong with them at all. So that makes things

harder."

"I understand, I think," she said in a small, nervous-

sounding voice. She took a deep breath. "Am I getting

worse?"

Anna went very still. Kenny's face darkened, and he

bit his lower lip.

"Well," he said quietly. "Yes. We're having to think

about mobility, and maybe even life-support for you.

Something considerably more than my chair. I wish I

could tell you differently, Tia."

"That's all right," she said, trying to ease his distress.

"I'd rather know."

Anna leaned down to whisper something through

her suit-mike. "Tia, if you're afraid of crying, don't be.

If I were in your position, I'd cry. And if you would like

to be alone, tell us, all right?"

"Okay," she replied, faindy. "Uh, can I be alone for a

while, please?"

"Sure." She stopped pretending to fuss with equip-

ment and nodded shortly at the hoio-screen. Kenny

brought up one hand to wave at her, and the screen

blinked ouL Anna left through what Tia now realized

was a decontam-airlock a moment later. Leaving her

alone with the hissing, humming equipment, and Ted.

She swallowed a lump in her throat and thought

very hard about what they'd told her.

She wasn't getting any better, she was getting worse.

They didn't know what was wrong. That was on the

negative side. On the plus side, there was nothing

THE SHIP WHOSEARCHED

wrong with Mum and Dad, and they hadn't said to give

up all hope.

Therefore, she should continue to assume that they

would find a cure.

She cleared her throat. "Hello?" she said.

As she had thought, there was an AI monitoring the

room.

"Hello," it replied, in the curiously accentless voice

only an AI could produce. "What is your need?"

"I'd like to watch a holo. History," she said, after a

moment of thought "There's a holo about Queen Hat-

shepsut of Egypt It's called Phoenix ofRa, I think. Have

you got that?"

That had been on the forbidden list at home; Tia

knew why. There had been some pretty steamy scenes

with the Pharaoh and her architect in there. Tia was

fascinated by the only female to declare herself

Pharaoh, however, and had been decidedly annoyed

when a little sex kept her from viewing this one.

"Yes, I have access to that," the AI said after a

moment. "Would you like to view it now?"

So they hadn't put any restrictions on her viewing

privileges! "Yes," she replied; then, eager to strike

while she had the chance, "And after that, I'd like to see

the Aten trilogy, about Ahnkenaten and the heretics —

that's Aten Rising, Aten at Zenith, and Aten Descending."

Those had more than a few steamy scenes; she'd

overheard her mother saying that some of the theories

that had been dramatized fairly explicitly in the trilogy,

while they made comprehensible some otherwise inex-

plicable findings, would get the holos banned in some

cultures. And Braddon had chuckled and replied that

the costumes alone — or lack of them — while com-

pletely accurate, would do the same. Still—Ha figured

she could handle it And if it was that bad, it would cer-

tainly help keep her mind off her own troubles!

"Very well," the AI said agreeably. "Shall I begin?"

Aims McCaffrey &? Mercedes Lackey

"Yes," she told it, with another caress ofher cheek on

Ted's soft fur. "Please."

Pota and Braddon watched their daughter with

frozen faces, faces that Tia was convinced covered a

complete welter of emotions that they didn't want her

to see. She took a deep breath, enunciated "Chair for-

ward, five feet," and her Moto-Chair glided forward

and stopped hefore it touched them.

"Well, now I can get around at least," she said, with

what she hoped sounded like cheer. "I was getting

awfully tired of the same four walls!"

Whatever it was that she had — and now she heard

the words "proto-virus" and "dystrophic sclerosis"

bandied about more often than not — the medics had

decided it wasn't contagious. They'd let Pota and Brad-

don out of isolation, and they'd moved Tia to another

room, one that had a door right onto the corridor. Not

that it made much difference, except that Anna didn't

have to use a decontam airlock and pressure-suit

anymore. And now Kenny came to see her in person.

But four white walls were still four white walls, and

there wasn't much variation in rooms.

Still — she was afraid to ask for things to personalize

the room. Afraid that if she made it more her own —

she'd be stuck in it. Forever.

Her numbness and paralysis extended to most of

her body now, except for her facial muscles. And there

it stopped. Just as inexplicably as it had begun.

They'd put her in die quadriplegic version of the

Moto-Chair; just like Kenny's except that she control-

led hers with a few commands and series of

tongue-switches and eye movements. A command sent

it forward, and the direction she looked would tell it

where to go. And hers had mechanical "arms" that fol-

lowed set patterns programmed in to respond to more

commands. Any command had to be prefaced by

THESHIPWHOSEARCHED

"chair" or "arm." A clumsy system, but it was the best

they could do without direct synaptic connections from

the brainstem, like those of a shellperson.

Her brainstem was still intact, anyway. Whatever it

was had gotten her spine, but not that.

Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, she thought with bitter

irony, haw was the play?

"What do you think, pumpkin?" Braddon asked, his

voice quivering only a little.

"Hey, this is stellar, Dad," she replied cheerfully. "It's

just like piloting a ship! I think I'll challenge Doctor

Kenny to a race!"

Pota swallowed very hard and managed a tremulous

smile. "It won't be for too long," she said without convic-

tion. "As soon as they find out what's set up housekeeping

in there, they'll have you better in no time."

She bit her lip to keep from snapping back and dug

up a fatuous grin from somewhere. The likelihood of

finding a cure diminished more with every day, and she

knew it Neither Anna nor Kenny made any attempt to

hide that from her.

But there was no point in making her parents

unhappy. They already felt bad enough.

She tried out all the points of the chair for them,

until not even they could stand it anymore. They left,

making excuses and promising to come back — and

they were succeeded immediately by a stream of

interns and neurological specialists, each of whom had

more variations on the same basic questions she had

answered a thousand times, each of whom had his own

pet theory about what was wrong.

"First my toes felt like they were asleep when I woke up one

morning, but it wore off. Then it didn't wear off. Then instead

of waking up with tingles, I woke up numb. Not sir, it never

actually hurt. No, ma'am, it only went as far as my heel at first.

Yes, sir, then after two days my fingers started. No ma'am, just

the fingers not the whole hand...."

Anne McCaffrey &? Mercedes Lackey

Hours of it. But she knew that they weren't being

nasty, they were trying to help her, and being able to

help her depended on how cooperative she was.

But their questions didn't stop the questions of her

own. So for it was just sensory nerves and voluntary

muscles and nerves. What if it went to the involuntary

ones, and she woke up unable to breathe? What then?

What if she lost control of her facial muscles? Every lit-

tle tingle made her break out in a sweat of panic,

thinking it was going to happen....

Nobody had answers for any questions. Not hers,

and not theirs.

Finally, just before dinner, they went away. After

about a half an hour, she mastered control of the arms

enough to feed herself, saving herself the humiliation

of having to call a nurse to do it. And the chair's own

plumbing solved the humiliation of the natural result

of eating and drinking....

After supper, when the tray was taken away, she was

left in the growing darkness of the room, quite alone.

She would have slumped, if she could have. It was just

as well that Pota and Braddon hadn't returned; having

them there was a strain. It was harder to be brave in

front of them than it was in front of strangers.

"'Chair, turn seventy degrees right," she ordered.

"Left arm, pick up bear."

With a soft whir, the chair obeyed her.

"Leftarm.putbear—cancel. Left arm, bring bear to

left efface." The arm moved a little. "Closer. Closer.

Hold."

Now she cuddled Ted against her cheek, and she

could pretend that it was her own arm holding him

there.

With no one there to see, slow, hot tears formed in

her eyes and trickled down her cheeks. She leaned her

head to the left a little, so that they would soak into

Ted's soft blue fur and not betray her.

THE SHIP WHO SEARCHED

"It's not fair," she whispered to Ted, who seemed to

nod with sad agreement as she rubbed her cheek

against him. "It's not fair...."

/ wanted to find the EsKay homeworld. I wanted to go out

with Mum and Dad and be the one to find the homeworld. I

wanted to write books. I wanted to stand up in front of people

and make them laugh and get excited, and see how history and

archeology aren't dead, they're just asleep. I wanted to do things

they make holos out of. I wanted—I wanted —

/ wanted to see things! I wanted to drive grav-sleds and

swim in a real lagoon and feel a storm and—

—and 1wanted —

Some of the scenes from the holos she'd been watch-

ing came back with force now, and memories of Pota

and Braddon, when they thought she was engrossed in

a book or a holo, giggling and cuddling like

tweenies....

/ wanted to find out about boys. Boys and kisses and—

And now nobody's ever going to look at me and see me. All

they're going to see is this big metal thing. That's all they see

now....

Even if a boy ever wanted to kiss me, he'd have to get past a

half ton of machinery, and it would probably bleep an alarm.

The tears poured faster now, with the darkness of

the room to hide them.

They wouldn't have put me in this thing if they thought I was

going to get better. 7*m never going to get better. Vm only going

to get worse, f can't feel anything, I'm nothing but a head in a

machine. And if I get worse, will I go deaf? Blind?

"Teddy, what's going to happen to me?" she sobbed,

"Am I going to spend the rest of my life in a room?"

Ted didn't know, any more than she did.

"It's not fair, it's not fair, I never did anything," she

wept, as Ted watched her tears with round, sad eyes,

and soaked them up for her. "It's not fair. I wasn't

finished. I hadn't even started yet...."

Anne McCaffrey & Mercedes Lackey

Kenny grabbed a tissue with one hand and

snapped off the camera-relay with the other. He

scrubbed fiercely at his eyes and blew his nose with a

combination of anger and grief. Anger, at his own im-

potence. Grief, for the vulnerable little girl alone in

that cold, impersonal hospital room, a little girl who

was doing her damnedest to put a brave face on

everything.

In public. He was the only one to watch her in

private, like this, when she thought there was no one to

see that her whole pose of cheer was nothing more

than a facade.

"I wasn't finished. 1wasn't even started yet."

"Damn it," he swore, scrubbing at his eyes again and

pounding the arm of his chair. "Damn it anyway!" What

careless god had caused her to choose the very words he

had used, fifteen years ago?

Fifteen years ago, when a stupid accident had left

him paralyzed from the waist down and put an end —

he thought — to his dreams for med school?

Fifteen years ago, when Doctor Harwat Kline-Bes

was his doctor and had heard him weeping alone into

his pillow?

He turned his chair and opened the viewport out

into the stars, staring at them as they moved past in a

panorama of perfect beauty that changed with the

rotation of the station. He let the tears dry on his

cheeks, let his mind empty.

Fifteen years ago, another neurologist had heard

those stammered, heartbroken words, and had

determined that they would not become a truth. He had

taken a paraplegic young student, bullied the makers

of an experimental Moto-Chair into giving the

youngster one — then bullied the dean of the Meyasor

State Medical College into admitting the boy. Then he

had seen to it that once the boy graduated, he got an

internship in this very hospital — a place where a

THE SHIP WHO SEARCHED

neurologist in a Moto-Chair was no great curiosity, not

with the sentients of a hundred worlds coming in as

patients and doctors....

A paraplegic, though. Not a quad. Not a child with a

brilliant, flexible mind, trapped in an inert body.

Brilliant mind. Inert body. Brilliant—

An idea blinded him, it occurred so suddenly. He was

not the only person watching Tia — there was one

other. Someone who watched every patient here, every

doctor, every nurse.... Someone he didn't consult too

often, because Lars wasn't a medico, or a shrink —

But in this case, Lars' opinion was likely to be more

accurate than anyone else's on this station. Including

his own.

He thumbed a control. "Lars," he said shortly. "Got a

minute, buddy?"

He had to wait for a moment Lars was a busy guy —

though hopefully at this hour there weren't too many

demands on his conversational circuits. "Certainly,

Kenny," Lars replied after a few seconds. "How can I

help the neurological wunderkind of Central Worlds

MedStation Pride of Albion? Hmm?" The voice was rich

and ironic; Lars rather enjoyed teasing everyone on-

board. He called it "therapeutic deflation of egos." He

particularly liked deflating Kenny's — he had said

more than once that everyone else was so afraid of

being "unkind to the poor cripple" that they danced on

eggs to avoid telling him when he was full of it.

"Can the sarcasm, Lars," Kenny replied. "I've got a

serious problem that I want your opinion on."

"My opinion?" Lars sounded genuinely surprised.

"This must be a personal opinion — I'm certainly not

qualified to give you a medical one."

"Most definitely, a very personal opinion, one that

you are the best suited to give. On Hypatia Cade."

"Ah." Kenny thought that Lars' tone softened con-

siderably. "The little child in the Neuro unit, with the

Anne McCaffrey Es1 Mercedes Lackey

unchildlike taste in holos. She still thinks I'm the Al. I

haven't dissuaded her."

"Good, I want her to be herself around you, for the

gods of space know she won't be herself around the rest

of us." He realized that his tone had gone savage and

carefully regained control over himself before he con-

tinued. "You've got her records and you've watched

the kid herself. I know she's old for it—but how would

she do in the shell program?"

Along pause. Longer than Lars needed simply to

access and analyze records. "Has her condition stabi-

lized?" he asked, cautiously. "If it hasn't — if she goes

brain-inert halfway into her schooling — it'd not only

make problems for anyone else you'd want to bring in

late, it'll traumatize the other shell-kids badly. They

don't handle death well, I wouldn't be a party to

frightening them, however inadvertendy."

Kenny massaged his temple with the long, clever

fingers that had worked so many surgical miracles for

others and could do nothing for this little girl. "As far as

we can tell anything about this — disease — yes, she's

stable," he said finally. "Take a look in there and you'll

see I ordered a shotgun approach while we were test-

ing her. She's had a full course of every anti-viral

neurological agent we've got a record of. And non-

invasive things like a course of ultra — well, you can see

it there. I think we killed it, whatever it was."

Too late to help her. Damn it.

"She's brilliant," Lars said cautiously. "She's flexible.

She has the ability to multi-thread, to do several things

at once. And she's had good, positive reactions to con-

tact with shellpersons in the past."

"So?" Kenny asked, impatiently, as the stars passed

by in their courses, indifferent to the fete of one little

girl. "Your opinion."

"I think she can make the transition," Lars said, with

more emphasis than Kenny had ever heard in his voice

THE SHIP WHO SEARCHED

before. "I think she'll not only make the transition,

He let out the breath he'd been holding in a sigh.

"Physically, she is certainly no worse off than many in

the shellperson program, including yours truly," Lars

continued. "Frankly, Kenny, she's got so much poten-

tial it would be a crime to let her rot in a hospital room

for the rest of her life."

The careful control Lars normally had over his voice

was gone; there was passion in his words that Kenny

had never heard him display until this moment. "Got

to you, too, did she?" he said dryly.

"Yes," Lars said, biting off the word. "And I'm not

ashamed of it I don't mind telling you that she had me

in — well, not tears, but certainly the equivalent."

"Good for you." He rubbed his hands together,

warming cold fingers. "Because I'm going to need your

connivance again."

"Going to pull another fast one, are you?" Lars

asked with ironic amusement.

'[Just a few strings. What good does being a stellar

intellect do me, if I can't make use of the position?" he

asked rhetorically. He shut the viewport and pivoted

his chair to face his desk, keying on his terminal and

linking it direcdy to Lars and a very personal database.

One called "Favors." "All right, my friend, let's get to

work. First, whose strings can you jerk? Then, who on

the political side has influence in the program, of that

set, who owes me the most, and of that subset, who's

due here the soonest?"

A Sector Secretary-General did not grovel, nor did

he gush, but to Kenny's immense satisfaction, when

Quintan Waldheim-Querar y Chan came aboard the

Pride of Albion, the very first thing he wanted, after all

the official inspections and the like were over, was to

meet with the brilliant neurologist whose work had

Atme McCaffrey fc? Mercedes Lackey

THE SHIP WHO SEARCHED

saved his nephew from the same fate as Kenny himself

He already knew most of what there was to know about

Kenny and his meteoric career.

And Quintan Waldheim-Querar y Chan was not the

sort to avoid an uncomfortable topic.

"A little ironic, isn't it?" the Secretary-General said,

after the firm handshake, with a glance at Kenny's

Moto-Chair. He stood up and did not tug self-

consciously at his conservative dark blue tunic.

Kenny did not smile, but he took a deep breath of

satisfaction. Doubly good. No more calk, we have a winner.

"What, that my injury was virtually identical to

Peregrine's?" he replied immediately. "Not ironic at all,

sir. The fact that 1 found myself in this position was

what prompted me to go into neurology in the first

place. I won't try to claim that if I hadn't been injured,

and hadn't worked so hard to find a remedy for the

same injuries, someone else might not have come up

with the same answer that I did. Medical research is a

matter of building on what has come before, after all."

"But without your special interest, the solution

might well have come too late to do Peregrine any

good," the Secretary-General countered. "And it was

not only your technique, it was your skill that pulled

him through. There is no duplication of that — not in

this sector, anyway. That's why I arranged for this visit

I wanted to thank you."

Kenny shrugged deprecatingly. This was the most

perfect opening he'd ever seen in his life — and he had

no intention of letting it get away from him. Not when

he had the answer Co Tia's prayers trapped in his office.

"I can't win them all, sir," he said flatly. "I'm not a

god. Though there are times I wish most profoundly

that I was, and right now is one of them."

The Great Man's expression sobered. The

Secretary-General was not just a Great Man because he

was an excellent administrator; he was one because he

had a human side, and that human and humane side

could be touched. "I take it you have a case that is trou-

bling you?" Then, conscious of the feet that he Owed

Kenny, he said the magic words. "Perhaps I can help?"

Kenny sighed, as if he were reluctant to continue the

discussion. Wouldn't do to seem too eager. "Well — would

you care to see some tape of the child?**

Child. Children were one of the Great Man's weak-

nesses. He had sponsored more child-oriented

programs than any three of his predecessors com-

bined. "Yes. If it would not be violating the child's

privacy."

"Here — " Kenny flicked a switch, triggering the

holo-record he already had keyed up. A record he and

Anna had put together. Carefully edited, carefully

selected, compiled from days of recordings with Lars'

assistance and the psych-profile of the Great Man to

guide them. "I promise I won't take more than fifteen

minutes of your time."

The first seven and a half minutes of this recording

were ofTia at her most attractive; being very brave and

cheerful for the interns and her parents. "This is

Hypatia Cade, the daughter of Pota Andropolous-

Cade and Braddon Maartens-Cade," he explained,

over the holo. Quickly he outlined her background

and her pathetic little story, stressing her high intel-

ligence, her flexibility, her responsibility. "The

prognosis isn't very cheerful, I'm afraid," he said,

watching his chrono carefully to time his speech with

the end of that section of tape. "No matter what we do,

she's doomed to spend the rest of her life in some

institution or other. The only way she could be at all

mobile would be through direct synaptic connections

— well, we don't do that here — they can only link in

that way at Lab Schools, the shellperson project—"

He stopped, as the holo flickered and darkened. Tia

was alone.

64 Anne McCaffrey & Merceries Lackey

The arm of her chair reached out and grasped the sad

little blue bear, hidden until now by the tray table and a pil-

low. It brought the toy in close to her face, and she gently

rubbed her cheek against its soft fur coat The lightning-

bolt of the Courier Service on its shirt stood out clearly in

this shot... one reason why Kenny had chosenit

"They've gone, Ted," she whispered to her bear.

"Mum and Dad — they've gone back to the Institute,

There's nobody left here but you, now,"

A single bright tear formed in one corner of her eye

and slowly rolled down her cheek, catching what little

light there was in the room.

"What? Oh, no, it's not their fault, Ted — they had

to. The Institute said so, I saw the dispatch. It said — it

said since I w-w-wasn't going to get any b-b-b-better

there was no p-p-p-point in — in — wasting v-v-valu-

ablet-t-time— "

She sobbed once, and buried her face in the teddy

bear's fur.

After a moment, her voice came again, muffled.

"Anyway, it hurts them so m-much. And it's s-s-so hard

tobeb-brave for them. But if I cried, th-they'd only feel

w-worse. I think m-maybe it's b-better this way, don't

you? Easier. F-for every-b-b-b-body...."

The holo flickered again; same time, nearly the same

position, but a different day. This time she was crying

openly, tears coursing down her cheeks as she sobbed

into the bear's little shirt.

"We've given her the complete run of the library and

the holo collection," Kenny said, very softly. "Normally,

they keep her relatively amused and stimulated — but

just before we filmed this, she picked out an episode of

The Stellar Explorers — and — well — her parents said

she had planned to be a pilot, you see — "

She continued to cry, sobbing helplessly, the only

understandable words being "—Teddy — I wanted —

to go—I wanted to see the stars — "

THE SHIP WHO SEARCHED

The holo flickered out, as Kenny turned the lights in

his office back up. He reached for a tissue and wiped

his eyes without shame. "I'm afraid she affects me

rather profoundly," he said, and smiled weakly. "So

much for my professional detachment."

The Great Man blinked rapidly to clear his own eyes.

"Why isn't something being done for that child?" he

demanded, his voice hoarse.

"We've done all we can — here," Kenny said. "The

only possibility of giving that poor child any kind of a

life is to get her into the shellperson program. But the

Psychs at the Laboratory Schools seem to think she's

too old. They wouldn't even send someone to come

evaluate her, even though the parents petitioned them

and we added our own recommendations...."

He let the sentence trail off significantly. The

Secretary-General gave him a sharp look. "And you

don't agree with them, I take it?"

Kenny shrugged. "It isn't just my opinion," he said

smoothly. "It's die opinion of the staff Psych assigned to

her, the shellperson running this station, and a brain-

ship friend of hers in the Courier Service. The one," he

added delicately, "who gave her that little bear."

Mentioning the bear sold the deal; Kenny could see

it in the Great Man's expression. "We'll just see about

that," the Secretary-General said. "The people you

talked to don't have all the answers—and they certainly

don't have the final say." He stood up and offered

Kenny his hand again. "I won't promise anything —

but don't be surprised if there's someone from the

Laboratory Schools here to see her in the next few

days. How soon can you have her ready for transfer, if

they take her?"

"Within twelve hours, sir," Kenny replied, secretly

congratulating himself for getting her parents to sign a

writ-of-consent before they left. Of course, they

thought it was for experimental procedures.

Arme McCaffrey £sf Mercedes Lackey

THE SHIP WHO SEARCHED

Then again, Pota and Braddon had been the ones

who'd broached the idea of the shellperson program to

the people at the Laboratory Schools and been turned

down because ofTia's age.

"Twelve hours?" The Great Man raised an eyebrow.

Kenny returned him look for look.

"Her parents are under contract to the Archeologi-

cal Institute," he explained. "The Institute called them

back out into the field, because their parental emer-

gency leave was up. They weren't happy, but it was

obey or be fired. Hard to find another job in that field

that isn't with the Institute." He coughed. "Well, they

trusted my work, and made me Tia's full guardian

before they left."

"So you have right-of-disposition and guardianship.

Very tidy." The Secretary-General's wry smile showed

that he knew he had been maneuvered into this — and

that he was not annoyed. "All right. There'll be some-

one from the schools here within the week. Unless

there's something you haven't told me about the girl,

he should finish his evaluation in two days. At the end

of those two days..." One eyebrow raised significantly.

"Well, it would be very convenient if he could take the

new recruit back with him, wouldn't it?"

"Yes, sir," Kenny said happily. "It would indeed, sir."

If it hadn't been for Doctor Uhua-Sorg's reputation

and the pleas of his former pupil, Lars Mendoza,

Philip Gryphon bint Brogen would have been only too

happy to tell the committee where to stick the

Secretary-General's request. And what to do with it

after they put it there. One did not pull strings to get an

unsuitable candidate into the shell program! Maybe

the Secretary-General thought he could get away with

that kind of politicking with Academy admissions, but

he was going to find out differently here.

Philip was not inclined to be coaxed and would not

give in to bullying. So it was in a decidedly belligerent

state of mind that he disembarked from his shuttle onto

the docks of the Pride of Albion. Like every hospital sta-

tion, this one affronted him with its sterile white walls

and atmosphere of self-importance.

There was someone waiting — obviously for him —

in the reception area. Someone in a Moto-Chair. A

handsome young man with thick dark hair and a thin,

ascetic face.

If they thmk they can soften me up by assigning me to some-

one they think I won't dare be nide to — he thought

savagely, as the young man glided the Chair toward

him. Conniving beggars—

"Professor Brogen?" said the ridiculously young,

vulnerable-looking man, holding out his hand. "I'm

Doctor Sorg."

"If you think I'm going to — " Brogen began, not

reaching out to take it — then the name registered on

him and he did a classic double-take. "Doctor Sorg? Doc-

tor Uhua-Sorg?"

The young man nodded, just the barest trace of a

smile showing on his lips.

"Doctor Kennet Uhua-Sorg?" Brogen asked, feeling

as if he'd been set up, yet knowing he had set up him-

self for this particular fall.

"Yes indeed," the young man replied. "I take it that

you weren't — ah — expecting me to meet you in

person.**

A chance for an out—not a graceful one, but an out

— and Brogen took it "Hardly," he repbed brusquely.

"The Chief of Neurosurgery and Neurological

Research usually does not meet a simple professor on

behalf of an ordinary child."

"Tia is far from ordinary, Professor," Doctor Sorg

responded, never once losing that hint of smile. "Any

more than you are a 'simple' professor. But, if you'll fol-

low me, you'll find out about Tia for yourself"

Anne McCaffrty & Mercedes Lackey

THE SHIP WHO SEARCHED

Well, he's right about one thing, Brogen thought grudg-

ingly, after an hour spent in Tia's company while

hordes of interns and specialists pestered, poked and

prodded her. She's not ordinary. Any "ordinary" chM would

be having a screaming tantrum by now. She was an extraor-

dinarily attractive child as well as a patient one; her

dark hair had been cropped short to keep it out of the

way, but her thin, pixie-like face and big eyes made her

look like the model for a Victorian fairy. A fairy trapped

in a fist of metal... tormented and teased by a swarm of

wasps.

"How much longer is this going to go on?" he asked

Rennet Sorg in an irritated whisper.

Kennet raised one eyebrow. "That's for you to say," he

replied. "You are here to evaluate her. If you want more

time alone with her, you have only to say the word. This is

her second session for die day, by the way," he added, and

Brogen could have sworn there was a hint of— smug-

ness? — in his voice. "She played host to another swarm

this morning, between nine and noon."

Now Brogen was outraged, but on the child's behal£

Kennet Sorg must have read that in his expression, for

he turned his chair towards the cluster of white-

uniformed interns, cleared his throat, and got their

instant attention.

"That will be all for today," he said quietly. "If you

please, ladies and gentlemen. Professor Brogen would

like to have some time with Tia alone."

There were looks of disappointment and some even

of disgust cast Brogen's way, but he ignored them. The

child, at least, looked relieved.

Before he could say anything to Kennet Sorg, he

realized that the doctor had followed the others out the

door, which was closing behind his chair, leaving

Brogen alone with the child. He cleared his own throat

awkwardly.

The little girl looked at him with a most peculiar

expression in her eyes. Not fear, but wariness.

"You're not a Psych, are you?" she asked.

"Well — no," he said. "Not exactly. I'll probably ask

some of the same questions, though."

She sighed, and closed her soft brown eyes for a

moment. "I'm very tired of having my head shrunk,"

she replied forthrightly. "Very, very tired. And it isn't

going to make any difference at all in the way I think,

anyway. It isn't/at^ but this — " she bobbed her chin at

her chair " — isn't going to go away because it isn't fair.

Right?"

"Sad, but true, my dear." He began to relax, and

realized why. Kennet Sorg was tight This was no ordi-

nary child; talking with her was not like talking to a

child — but it was like talking to one of the kids in the

shell program. "So — how about if we chat about

something else entirely. Do you know any shellper-

sons?"

She gave him an odd look. "They must not have told

you very much about me," she said. "Either that, or

you didn't pay very much attention. One of my very

best friends is a brainship — Moira Valentine-Maya.

She gave me Theodore."

Theodore? Oh — right. Thebear— Hecastaquick

glance over towards die bed — and there was the som-

ber-looking little bear in a Courier Service shirt that

he'd been told about.

"Did you ever think about what being in a shell must

be like?" he asked, fishing for a way to explain the pro-

gram to her without letting her know she was being

evaluated.

"Of course I did!" she said, not bothering to hide her

scorn. "I told Moira that 1 wanted to be just like her

when I grew up, and she laughed at me and told me all

about what the schools were like and everything—"

And then, before he could say anything, the

Anne McCaffrey fc? Mercedes Lackey

THE SHIP WHO SEARCHED

unchildlike child proceeded to tell him about his o\vn

program. The brainship side, at any rate.

Pros and cons. From having to be able to multi-task,

to the thrill of experiencing a singularity and warp-

space firsthand. From being locked forever in a metal

skin, to the loneliness of knowing that you were going

to outlive all your partners but the last...

"I told her that I guessed I didn't want to go in when

I figured out that you could never touch anybody

again," she concluded, wearily. "I know you've got sen-

sors to the skin and everything, but that was what 1

didn'tlike. Kind of funny, huh?"

"Why?" he asked without thinking.

"Because now — I can't touch anybody. And I won't

ever again. So it's kind of funny. I can't touch anyone

anymore, but I can't be a brainship either." The tired

resignation in her voice galvanized him.

"I don't know why you couldn't," he said, aware that

he had already made up his mind, and both aghast and

amused at himself "There's room in this year's class for

another couple of new candidates; there's even room

in the brainship category for one or two pupils."

She blinked at him, then blurted, "But they told me 1

was too old!"

He laughed. "My dear,))0tt wouldn't be too old if you

were your mother's age. You would have been a good

shell-program candidate well past puberty." He still

couldn't believe this child; responsible, articulate,

flexible.... Lars and Rennet Sorg had been right. It

made him wonder how many other children had been

rejected out of hand, simply because of age — how

many had been lost to a sterile existence in an institu-

tion, just because they had no one as persistent and as

influential as Kennet Sorg to plead their cases.

Well, one thing at a time. Grab this one now. Put

something in place to take care of the others later. "I'm

going to have to go through the motions and file the

pap

..erwork — but Tia, if you want, you can consider

yourself recruited this very instant."

"Yes!" she burst out "Oh, yes! Yes, yes, yes! Oh,

please, thank you, thank you so much — " Her cheeks

were wet with tears, but the joy on her face was so in-

tense that it was blinding. Professor Brogen blinked

and swallowed a lump in his throat.

"The advantage of recruiting someone your age,"

he said, ignoring her tears and his tickling eyes, "is that

you can make your career path decision right away.

Shellpersons don't all go into brainships — for

instance, you could opt for a career with the Institute;

they've been asking to hire a shellperson to head their

home-base research section for the last twenty years.

You could do original research on the findings of

others — even your parents' discoveries. You could

become a Spaceport Administrator, or a Station Ad-

ministrator. You could go into law, or virtually any

branch of science. Even medicine. With the synaptic

links we have, there is no career you cannot consider."

"But I want to be a brainship," she said firmly.

Brogen took a deep breath. While he agreed with

her emotionally—well, there were some serious draw-

backs. "Tia, a lot of what a brainship does is — well,

being a truck driver or a cabby. Ferrying people or

things from one place to another. It isn't very

glamorous work. It is quite dangerous, both physically

and psychologically. You would be very valuable, and

yet totally unarmed, unless you went into the military

branch, which I don't think you're suited for, frankly.

You would be a target for thieves and malcontents. And

there is one other thing; the ship is very expensive. In

my not-so-humble opinion, brainship service is just

one short step from indentured slavery. You are literal-

ly paying for the use and upkeep of that ship by

mortgaging yourself. There is very little chance of

buying your contract out in any reasonable length of

Anne McCaffrey 6? Mercedes Lackey

time unless you do something truly spectacular or take

on very dangerous duties. The former isn't likely to

happen in ordinary service — and you won't be able to

exchange boring service for whatever your fancy is."

Tia looked stubborn for a moment, then thoughtful.

"All of that is true," she said, finally. "But — Professor,

Dad always said I had his astrogator genes, and I was

already getting into tensor physics, so I have the head

for starflight. And it's what I want."

Brogen turned up his hands. "I can't argue with

that- There's no arguing with preferences, is there?" In

a way, he was rather pleased. As self-possessed as Tia

was, she would do very well in brainship service. And as

stable as she seemed to be, there was very little chance

of her having psychological problems, unless some-

thing completely unforeseen came up.

She smiled shyly. "Besides, I talked this over with

Moira — you know, giving her ideas on how she could

get some extra credits to help with all her fines for

bouncing her brawns? Since she was with Archeology

and Exploration as a courier, there were lots of chances

for her to see things that the surveyors might not, and I

kind of told her what to look for. I kind of figured that

with my background, it wouldn't be too hard to get

assigned to A and E myself, and I could do the same

things, only better. I could get a lot of credits that way.

And once I owned my ship — well, 1 could do whatever

I wanted."

Brogen couldn't help himself; he started to laugh.

"You are quite the young schemer, did you know that?"

She grinned, looking truly happy for the first time

since he had seen her. Now that he had seen the real

thing, he recognized all her earlier "smiles" for the

shams that they had been.

Leaving her here would have been a crime. A sin.

"Well, you can consider yourself recruited," he said

comfortably. "I'll fill out the paperwork tonight,

THE SHIP WHO SEARCHED

databurst it to the schools as soon as I finish, and there

should be a confirmation waiting for us when we wake

up. Think you can be ready to ship out in the morn-

ing?"

"Yes, sir," she said happily.

He rose and started to leave — then paused for a

m«You know," he said, "you were right. I really didn't

pay too much attention to the file they gave me on you,

since I was so certain that—well, never mind. But I am

terribly curious about your name. Why on earth did

your parents call you 'Hypatia'?"

Tia laughed out loud, a peal of infectious joy.

"I think, Professor Brogen," she said, "that you'd

better sit back down!"

CenCom's softperson operator had a pleasant voice

and an equally pleasant habit of not starting a call with a

burst of static or an alert-beep. "XH One-Oh-Three-

Three, you have an incoming transmission. Canned

message beam."

Ha tore herself away from the latest papers on the

Salomon-Kildaire Entities with a purely mental sigh of

regret. Oh, she could take in a databurst and scan the

papers at the same time, certainly, but she wanted to do

more than simply scan the information. She wanted to

absorb it, so that she could think about it later in detail.

There were nuances to academic papers that simple

scanning wouldn't reveal; places where you had to

know the personality of the author in order to read

between the lines. Places where what wasn't written

were as important as what was.

"Go ahead, CenCom," she replied, wondering who on

earth—or off it, for diat matter—could be calling her.

Strange how we've been out ofTerran subspaceforso long,

and yet we still ttse expressions like "how on earth"... there's

probably a popular-science paper in that.

The central screen directly opposite the column she

was housed in flickered for a moment, then filled with

the image of a thin-faced man in an elaborate Moto-

Chair, No — more than a Moto-Chair; this one was

kind of a platform for something else. She saw what

could only be an APU, and a short-beam broadcast unit

of some kind. It looked like his legs and waist were

encased in the bottom half of space armor!

THE SHIP WHO SEARCHED

But there was no mistaking who was in the strange

exoskeleton. Doctor Kenny.

"Tia, my darling girl, congratulations on your

graduation!" Kenny said, eyes twinkling. "You should

_ given the vagaries of the CenCom postal system —

nave gotten your graduation present from Lars and

Anna and me. I hope you liked it—them—"

The graduation present had arrived on time, and Tia

had been enthralled. She loved instrumental music,

synthcom in particular, but these recordings had spe-

cial meaning for any shellperson, for they had been

composed and played by David Weber-Tcherkasky, a

shellperson himself, and they were not meant for the

limited ears of softpeople. The composer had made use

of every note of the aural spectrum, with super-

complexes of overtones and counterpoint that left

softpersons squinting in bewilderment. They weren't

for everyone — not even for some shellpersons — but

Tia didn't think she would ever get tired of listening to

them. Every time she played them, she heard some-

thing new.

" — anyway, I remembered you saying in your last

transmission how much you liked Lanz Manhem's

synthcom recordings, and Lars kept telling me that

Tcherkasky's work was to Manhem's what a symphony

was to birdsong." Kenny shrugged and grinned. "We

figured that it would help to while away the in-transit

hours for you, anyway. Anna said the graduation was

stellar — I'm sorry I couldn'tbe there, but you're look-

ing at the reason why."

He made a face and gestured down at the lower half

of his body. "Moto-Prosthetics decided in their infinite

wisdom that since I had benefited from their expertise

in the past, I owed them. They convinced the hospital

Admin Head that I was the only possible person to test

this contraption of theirs. This is supposed to be some-

thing that will let me stroll around a room — or more

Aime McCaffrey &? Mercedes Lackey

importantly, stand in an operating theater for as long

as I need to. When it's working, that is." He shook his

head. "Buggy as a new software system, let me tell you.

Yesterday the fardling thing locked up on me, with one

foot in the air Wasn't /just a charming sight, posing in

the middle of the hall like a dancer in a Greek frieze!

Think I'm going to rely on my old Chair when I really

need to do something, at least for a while."

Tia chuckled at the mental image of Kermy frozen in

place and unable to move.

He shook his head and laughed. "Well, between this

piece of— ah — hardware, and my patients, I had to

send Anna as our official deputation. Hope you've for-

given Lars and me, sweetheart—"

A voice, warm and amused, interrupted Doctor

Kenny. "There was just a wee problem with my getting

leave, after all," Lars said, over the office speakers, as

Kenny grinned. "And they simply wouldn't let me

de-orbit the station and take it down to the schools for the

graduation ceremony. Very inconsiderate of them, / say."

Tia had to laugh at that.

"That just means you'll have to come visit me. Now

that you're one of the club, far-traveler, we'll have to

exchange softie-jokes. How many softies does it take to

change a lightbulb?"

Kenny made a rude noise. Although he looked tired,

Tia noted that he seemed to be in very good spirits.

There was only one thing that combination meant;

he'd pulled off another miracle. "I resemble that

remark," he said. "Anyway, Lars got your relay num-

ber, so you'll be hearing from us — probably more

often than you want! We love you, lady! Big Zen hugs

from both of us!"

The screen flickered and went blank; Tia sighed with

contentment. Lars had been the one to come up with

"Zen hugs" — "the hugs that you would get, if we were

there, if we could hug you, but we aren't, and we can't"—

THE SHIP WHO SEARCHED

and he and Kenny began using them in their weekly

transmissions to Tia all through school. Before long her

entire class began using the phrase, so pointedly apt for

shellpeople, and now it was spreading across known

space. Kenny had been amused, especially after one of

his recovering patients got the phrase in a transmission

from his stay-at-home, techno-phobic wife!

Well, the transmission put the cap on her day, that

was certain. And the perfect climax to the beginning of

her new life. Anna and her parents at the graduation

ceremony, Professor Brogen handing out the special

awards she'd gotten in Xenology, Diplomacy, and First

Contact Studies, Moira showing up at the landing field

the same day she was installed in her ship, still with

Tbmas, wonder of wonders....

Having Moira there to figuratively hold her hand

during the nasty process of partial anesthesia while the

techs hooked her up in her column had been worth

platinum.

She shuddered at the memory. Oh, they could

describe the feelings (or rather, lack of them) to you, they

could psych you up for experience, and you thought

you were ready, but the moment of truth, when you

lost everything but primitive com and the few sensors

in the shell itself... was horrible. Something out of the

worst of nightmares.

And she still remembered what it had been like to

live with only softperson senses. She couldn't imagine

what it was like for those who'd been popped into a

shell at birth. It had brought back all the fear and feel-

ing of helplessness of her time in the hospital.

It had been easier with Moira there. But if the trans-

fer had been a journey through sensory-deprivation

hell, waking up in the ship had been pure heaven.

No amount of simulator training conveyed what it

really felt like, to have a living, breathing ship wrapped

around you.

Anne McCaffrey &? Mercedes Lackey

It was a moment that had given her back everything

she had lost. Never mind that her "skin" was duralloy

metal, her "legs" were engines, her "arms" the servos

she used to maintain herself inside and out. That her

"lungs" and "heart" were the life-support systems that

would keep her brawn alive. That all of her senses were

ship's sensors linked through brainstem relays. None

of that mattered. She had a body again! That was a

moment of ecstasy no one plugged into a shell at birth

would ever understand. Moira did, though ... and it

had been wonderful to be able to share that moment of

elation.

And Tomas understood, as only a brawn-partner of

long-standing could, Tomas had arranged for

Theodore Edward Bear to have his own litde case built

into the wall of the central cabin as his graduation

present. "And decom anyone who doesn't under-

stand," he said firmly, putting a newly cleaned Ted

behind his plexi panel and closing the door. "A brawn is

only a brawn, but a bear is a friend for life!"

So now the solemn little blue bear in his Courier

Service shirt reigned as silent supervisor over the

central cabin, and to perdition with whatever the

brawns made of him. Well, let them think it was some

kind of odd holo-art. Speaking of which, the next set

of brawn-candidates was due shortly. We II see how they

react to Ted.

Tia returned to her papers, keeping a running

statistical analysis and cross-tabulations on anything

that seemed interesting. And there were things that

seemed to be showing up, actually. Pockets of mineral

depletions in the area around the EsKay sites; an

astonishing similarity in the periodicity and seasonality

of the planets and planetoids. Insofar as a Mars-type

world could have seasons, that is. But the periodicity —

identical to within an hour. Interesting. Had they been

that dependent on natural sunlight? Come to think of it

THE SHIP WHO SEARCHED

__ yes, solar distances were very similar. And they were

all Sol-type stars.

She turned her attention to her parents' latest

papers, letting the EsKay discoveries stew in the back of

her mind. Pota and Braddon were the Schliemanns of

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