Partnership by Anne McCaffrey, Margaret Ball Page B
Authors: Anne McCaffrey, Margaret Ball
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without preamble.
"Yes?" Caleb didn't bother turning his head to look at the cabin speaker. Of course, he was an experienced 82
Anne McCaffrey & Margaret Ball
— if incompetent — brawn; he would know that she would be able to pick up his words from any direction.
Still, Nancia felt vaguely ruffled — as if she were being ignored even as he replied to her.
"Transporting you back to Central Worlds is my official assignment, and I cannot refuse it. But I do not wish you to construe this as formal acceptance of you as my brawn. I have no intention of waiving my rights to free choice of my own brawn just because this match is convenient for Central."
Now what ailed the man? He had just begun to regain some color after the high-G lift-off; now his face was drained again, still as a mask — or a corpse. Nancia began to wonder if this brawn would live to see Central. If he wasn't fit enough to make the journey, somebody should have warned me.
"Of course," said Caleb in a voice so level and drained of meaning that it could have issued from any housekeeping drone, "no one would expect you to waive that right. Particularly for me." He turned his head and for the first time looked direcdy at the sensor.
"Shut down sensors to this cabin, please, XN. I wish to rest In privacy," he emphasized. He lay down again with one arm flung over his face. After a moment he rolled over and lay facedown on the bunk, as if he didn't trust Nancia not to peek at him.
"Simeon? Shellcrack, Simeon, I know you're picking up my beams. TALK TO ME!"
"You're an excessively demanding young thing, XN-935, and you're shouting again."
"Sorry." Nancia was so glad to have got some response from the Vega Base brain that she immediately lowered the intensity of her beam to match Simeon's almost inaudible burst. "Simeon, I need to know about this brawn they've saddled me with."
"So scan the newsbeam files."
PARTNERSHIP
83
"I did. There's nothing in them. Not what I need to know, anyway." The files had been enlightening in their own way, with their lurid stories of a ship and a man almost destroyed by a sudden radiation burst, the brawn's limping, months-long journey homeward in his crippled, brainless ship and the hero's welcome he had received when he arrived at Vega 3.3 with the survey data he'd been sent to gather. The tale of what Caleb had gone through, the months of solitude and deprivation and the lingering effects of radiation poisoning, had done much to reshape Nancia's feelings towards the pallid brawn who'd boarded her on Vega 3.3. She felt a grudging respect for the man she saw spending hours in her exercise facility, working out with gyroweights and spring resistors to restore wasted niusdes.
The man who had accepted her initial hostile attitude as no more than his due, who'd shut her out of his mind at once and had not spoken a word to her since. They had traveled in silence through the three days it took to move between the suns of Vega 3 and Vega 4, while Nancia waited impatiently for Simeon to resume communications so that she could ask what she wanted to know. Finally she'd begun battering at the Vega Base brain's frequencies with ever-increasing bursts of communication that must have given him the equivalent of a softperson's "headache."
Nancia condensed the newsbytes she'd read and transmitted them in three short bursts to Simeon, just to convince him she'd done her homework.
"So what else do you want to know?"
"How. Did. He. Lose. His. Ship?" Nancia punctuated each word with a burst of irritated static
"You read the newsbytes."
"WE'RE SHIELDED AGAINST — sorry." She started over at normal intensity. "We're shielded against radiation. He shouldn't have been harmed, 84
Anne McCaffrey &f Margaret Ball
unless he was being careless — leaving the ship without checking radiation levels? And there's no way his ship could have been affected. What could have got through her column?"
"His column, in this case,"
"Yes?" Caleb didn't bother turning his head to look at the cabin speaker. Of course, he was an experienced 82
Anne McCaffrey & Margaret Ball
— if incompetent — brawn; he would know that she would be able to pick up his words from any direction.
Still, Nancia felt vaguely ruffled — as if she were being ignored even as he replied to her.
"Transporting you back to Central Worlds is my official assignment, and I cannot refuse it. But I do not wish you to construe this as formal acceptance of you as my brawn. I have no intention of waiving my rights to free choice of my own brawn just because this match is convenient for Central."
Now what ailed the man? He had just begun to regain some color after the high-G lift-off; now his face was drained again, still as a mask — or a corpse. Nancia began to wonder if this brawn would live to see Central. If he wasn't fit enough to make the journey, somebody should have warned me.
"Of course," said Caleb in a voice so level and drained of meaning that it could have issued from any housekeeping drone, "no one would expect you to waive that right. Particularly for me." He turned his head and for the first time looked direcdy at the sensor.
"Shut down sensors to this cabin, please, XN. I wish to rest In privacy," he emphasized. He lay down again with one arm flung over his face. After a moment he rolled over and lay facedown on the bunk, as if he didn't trust Nancia not to peek at him.
"Simeon? Shellcrack, Simeon, I know you're picking up my beams. TALK TO ME!"
"You're an excessively demanding young thing, XN-935, and you're shouting again."
"Sorry." Nancia was so glad to have got some response from the Vega Base brain that she immediately lowered the intensity of her beam to match Simeon's almost inaudible burst. "Simeon, I need to know about this brawn they've saddled me with."
"So scan the newsbeam files."
PARTNERSHIP
83
"I did. There's nothing in them. Not what I need to know, anyway." The files had been enlightening in their own way, with their lurid stories of a ship and a man almost destroyed by a sudden radiation burst, the brawn's limping, months-long journey homeward in his crippled, brainless ship and the hero's welcome he had received when he arrived at Vega 3.3 with the survey data he'd been sent to gather. The tale of what Caleb had gone through, the months of solitude and deprivation and the lingering effects of radiation poisoning, had done much to reshape Nancia's feelings towards the pallid brawn who'd boarded her on Vega 3.3. She felt a grudging respect for the man she saw spending hours in her exercise facility, working out with gyroweights and spring resistors to restore wasted niusdes.
The man who had accepted her initial hostile attitude as no more than his due, who'd shut her out of his mind at once and had not spoken a word to her since. They had traveled in silence through the three days it took to move between the suns of Vega 3 and Vega 4, while Nancia waited impatiently for Simeon to resume communications so that she could ask what she wanted to know. Finally she'd begun battering at the Vega Base brain's frequencies with ever-increasing bursts of communication that must have given him the equivalent of a softperson's "headache."
Nancia condensed the newsbytes she'd read and transmitted them in three short bursts to Simeon, just to convince him she'd done her homework.
"So what else do you want to know?"
"How. Did. He. Lose. His. Ship?" Nancia punctuated each word with a burst of irritated static
"You read the newsbytes."
"WE'RE SHIELDED AGAINST — sorry." She started over at normal intensity. "We're shielded against radiation. He shouldn't have been harmed, 84
Anne McCaffrey &f Margaret Ball
unless he was being careless — leaving the ship without checking radiation levels? And there's no way his ship could have been affected. What could have got through her column?"
"His column, in this case,"
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