Partnership (21 page)

"It wasn't Ganglicide," Nancia said quickly. "He'd be dead by now. Besides, no one would do such a thing."

"You might be surprised," said the infuriatingly calm managing brain of Murasaki Base. "But I agree, probably not Ganglicide. There are, however, slower-acting nerve poisons which, untreated, can be just as fetal. From what you report of his convulsive reaction, I would suggest immediate medical treatment by someone experienced with nerve poisons and their antidotes."

"Thanks very much," Nancia snapped. Sev had wrapped Caleb in all the blankets he could collect, but nothing stopped Caleb's incessant nervous shivering.

And every once in a while his spine arched backward while he cried out in delirium. "We came from Razmak Base in Bellatrix subspace. You're not seriously suggesting I take a man in this condition through Singularity, are you?"

"There happens to be an excellent clinic on Bahati,1*

the Murasaki Base brain replied. "If you were calm enough to check the Net records I'm transmitting, CN, you'd see that the assistant director there has a strong background in nerve poison research. With your permission, I will alert the Summerlands clinic to receive an emergency patient for the direct care of Dr.

Alpha bint Hezra-Fong."

Time stopped. Snatches of conversation forgotten for nearly four years echoed in Nancia's memory. An gxbert in Gangliade therapy right there at the Summerlands dime.. • testing Ganglicide on unwitting sitbjects ... so far vane on BUssto they didn't even know what was happening to them..-

She had the full conversations recorded and safely stored away. She didn't need them. Her own human memory was mercilessly replaying words she'd tried to forget

Did she dare put Caleb in Alpha bint Hezra-Fong's hands?

Did she dare not take him to the clinic?

There was really no choice.

They were only a few minutes from Bahati, but the time seemed like hours to Nancia. She blessed the multiprocessing capability that allowed her to perform multiple tasks at once. While one bank of processors controlled the landing computations, Nancia assigned two more to maintaining the comm link with Murasaki and opening a new link with Bahati. She reached the director of Summerlands and explained her requirements while simultaneously assimilating Murasaki Base's calm instructions.

The combination of Fassa's arrest and Caleb's wounds presented a complex political problem. Nancia was almost grateful for the complications; they gave her something to think about during the endless minutes before touchdown.

Courier Service policy strictly prohibited the transport of prisoners on a brainship with no brawn.

Nancia thought it was a silly policy, born of fears that were decades out of date. Earlier, less cleverly designed brainships might have been vulnerable to passenger takeover, but she was well protected against any little 164

Anne McCaffrey fc? Margaret Ball

PARTNERSHIP

165

tricks that Fassa might come up with. The auxiliary synaptic circuits known as the Helva Modification would prevent any attempt to dose off her sensory contact with her own ship-body.

All the same, Murasaki Base informed Nancia, the regulations existed for good reason and it was not up to a brainship to pick and choose which Service regs she would obey.

"All right, all right." Had Caleb twitched again? Summerlands Clinic personnel were standing by to collect him as soon as they landed. Bahati Spaceport was issuing final landing instructions. "Ill hand Fassa del Parma over to Bahati authorities."

"That you will not," the Murasaki Base brain informed her. "I've been in contact with CenDip while

' you were fussing over your brawn. The young lady is a political hot potato."

"Awhat?"

"Sorry. Old Earth slang. Never thought about the literal meaning ... let's see, I think a potato is some kind of tuber, but why anybody would try to ignite one... oh, well." Murasaki Base dismissed the intrigu-ing linguistic question for later consideration. "What it means is that nobody really wants to handle her trial.

Well, you can see for yourself, can't you, Nancia? If you're going to try a High Families brat and send her to prison, you don't do it out on some nowhere world at the edge of the galaxy. You bring her back to Central and you are very, very careful that all procedures are followed. To the letter. CenDip has strict instructions that nothing is to go wrong with this case; there's a certain highly placed authority who has taken a personal interest in stopping High Families corruption."

"You can tell your highly placed authority to — "

Nancia transmitted a burst of muddy tones and discordant high-pitched sounds.

"Can't," said Murasaki Base rather smugly.

"Softshells can't receive that kind of input Fortunately for them, I might add. Where did a nice brainship like you pick up that kind of language?"

Nancia landed at Bahati Spacefield as gently as a feather floating in the breeze. She opened her upper-level cabin doors and waited for the spaceport workers to bring a floatube. They'd already been informed of the reason why she didn't want to open the lower doors; the equipment should have been ready and waiting—ah! There it was now.

"Well, then, just inform your 'highly placed authority,' that a few little things have already gone wrong with this operation," Nancia told Murasaki Base. "And if I can't transport del Parma without a brawn, and I can't hand her over to Bahati, what am I supposed to do with her?"

"Wait for your new brawn, of course," Murasaki Base informed her.

"And just how long will thai take?" They were loading Caleb onto a stretcher now.

"About half an hour, if he can pack as quickly as he should."

"What?"

In answer, Murasaki Base transmitted the CenDip instruction bytes directly. "Senior Central Diplomatic service person ArmontiUado-y-Medoc, Forister, currently R&R at Summerlands Clinic, previous brawn status inactivated upon joining CenDip Central Date 2732, reactivated 2754 for single duty tour returning prisoner del Parma y Polo, Fassa, to Central Worlds jurisdiction,"

Before taking Caleb away, the Summerlands medtechs were running tests and dosing him with all-purpose antidotes. Alpha bint Hezra-Fong had come personally to oversee the operation. Nantia's sensors caught her dark, sharp-featured face from several angles while she leaned over Caleb. Her expression showed nothing but keen professional 166

Anm McCaffrey fc? Margaret Ball

PARTNERSHIP

167

interest: no hint of any evil plans to use Caleb as an unwitting experimental subject

And no compassion.

And now he was going into the floatube, beyond Nanria's sensor range.. .beyond her help. WhenwasSev?

Nancia scanned the sensor banks until she located him in one of the passenger cabins that had been concealed behind her fake paneling. He was guarding a groggy Fassa who had just begun to comeoutofthesleepgas.

"Sev, I need you to go with Caleb," Nancia announced.

"CN-935, please acknowledge receipt of formal orders," Murasaki Base input on another channel.

"Can't," Sev answered without looking round.

"Have to guard the prisoner. Check regulations."

Nancia knew he was right The same stupid CS regs that forbade her to transport Fassa without a brawn would also forbid her to take sole charge of a prisoner.

"Are regulations more important than Caleb's life?"

"Nancia, he's getting the best possible medical care.

What are you worried about?"

"CN-935 RESPOND!" Murasaki Base shouted.

The floatube was a speck on the horizon. They weren't stopping at the spaceport; they were taking Caleb directly to Summerlands. Where Alpha bint Hezra-Fong could do anything, anything at all, to him, and Nancia wouldn't even know until it was too late....

"Instructions received and accepted," she transmitted to Murasaki Base in one short burst. "Now GETTHAT BRAWN ON BOARD!" Forister Armontillado-y-Medoc? Nancia remembered the short, quiet man she'd transported somewhere, years earlier, to solve some crisis. The one who'd spent all his time on board reading. No matter what his records said, he wasn't her idea of a brawn. But who cared? The sooner he was here, the sooner Sev could be released from guard duty to go watch over Caleb.

Fassa was choking on the bottom of a lake. Weeds twined around her ankles, and the dear air was impossibly far away, miles above the green water that pressed her down and pushed at her mouth and ears and nose widi gentle, implacable persistence. She tried to kick free of the weeds; they clung tighter, reaching up past ankle and calf and knee with green slimy fingers that pressed dose against her thighs. When she looked down, the weeds shaped themselves into pale green faces with open mouths and dosed eyes. All the men who'd given her their hearts and their integrity and pieces of their souls were there on the bottom of the lake, and they wanted to keep her there with them.

Her chest was bursting with the need to breathe. If she gave back their souls, would they let her go?

She tried to strip off the charm bracelet on her left wrist, but the catch was stuck; tried to break the chain, but it was too strong. Green lake water seeped into her mouth with a bitter taste, and black spots danced before her eyes. She tugged the chain over her hand, scraping a knuckle raw, and flung it at the hungry ghosts. The sparkling charms of corydum and iridium floated lazily down among the muddy weeds, and Fassa was released to rise through rings of ever-lightening water until she broke the surface and breathed in the air that hurt like fire in her lungs.

She was lying on a bunk in a spaceship cabin. Sev Bryley was seated cross-legged on the opposite bunk, watching her with unsmiling attention. And the burning in her lungs was real, as was the throbbing pain in her head; sleepgas hangover. Now she remembered: surprise and violence and a fool who'd been where he had no business, and the gas flooding the cargo bay while she tried to hold her breath.

It all added up to a failure so crushing she could not bear to think about it yet. And Sev, the man who'd 168

ArmeMcCaffrey & Margaret Ball

never given her a piece of his soul to keep in her charm bracelet — was he the one who'd engineered this disaster?

"What are you doing here?" she croaked.

"Making sure you came out of the sleepgas without complications," Sev said. His voice sounded thin and strained, as if he were trying to reach her from a great distance. "Some people have a convulsive reaction. It looked for a while like you were going to be one of them."

And that had worried him? Perhaps he still cared for her a little, then. Perhaps her experiment of taking him aboard the Xanadu hadn't been a total failure, after all. Fassa stretched, experimentally, and saw the way his eyes followed her movements. Perhaps something could yet be salvaged from this catastrophe.

After all, they were alone on the droneship...

"Not convulsions," she said, languorously wriggling her toes and proceeding upward, muscle by muscle, to make certain that every inch of her own amazing body.

was back under her command again. *Just bad dreams."

"What sort of dreams?" Sev inquired.

Fassa sat up, rather more quickly than she had intended, and fell back against the cabin wall. "The sort that make you afraid to die."

"Thus conscience doth make cowards of us all," Sev agreed with no change of tone, and Fassa felt a stab of regret. She could have liked this man who so quickly picked up on her thoughts, capping her unvoiced quotations. If only he weren't so obstinately on the wrong side! Ah, well, perhaps that could be changed.

It would damn well have to be changed if she hoped to get out of this, she reminded herself

"Speak for yourself," she told him. "My conscience isn't all that troubled; I've done nothing more than what everybody does, just trying to get ahead by my own efforts." Wrong tone, wrong tone. She didn't want PARTNERSHIP

169

to argue with Bryley; she wanted to seduce him. No.

Reeded to seduce him. That was all.

And she wasn't going to get anywhere in her present condition. Fassa pushed sweaty, matted dark hair away from her forehead with a genuine moan of pain.

"God, I must look like hell," she said. "Would you mind very much getting out of here so I can clean up?"

"Yes," said Sev, "I would. You're not to be left unguarded until we return to Central. Orders from CenDip."

Fassa moaned again. If CenDip was interesting itself in her case, she was worse off than she'd thought.

Never mind. Central was a long way off. For the present she was alone on a droneship with this gorgeous hunk, and with any luck at all she'd make him change his allegiances before the official transports arrived to carry her to trial.

After only a little pouting and posing she managed to persuade Sev that propping himself against the wall outside her cabin would be adequate to fulfill his guard duty. It was, Fassa thought with satisfaction, a beginning. Now he would feel that this cabin was her territory. When he came in again, it would be at her invitation ... and invitations could lead to all sorts of interesting things. She washed from head to foot, kicked her stained and crumpled clothes in a corner under the bunk, splashed a little extra cool water over her face, and wrapped a sheet around herself in lieu of fresh clothes. This would be a real test of her abilities.

No cosmetics, hair combed straight with no styling, a scratchy Service-issue sheet instead of a clinging gown, and this bare cabin for a romantic setting!

"fossa baby, you're so sweet, I just can't resist you," Paul del Parma used to moan when he came into her room and buried himself in her. And she'd been aji awkward, sullen Uttle girl then, with her black hair in thin tight braids. She'd worn the ugliest, plainest 170

Anne McCaffrey & Margaret BaU

clothes she could find, but that didn't put Faul off.

For the first time Fassa deliberately summoned up the memories she'd tried for so long to bury, seeking the confidence she needed to go on. She really was ir-resistible to men. Faul del Parma had proved that, hadn't he? Even knowing it was wrong, even knowing she hated it, he'd still refused to let her alone.