Brain Ships - Anne McCaffrey [268]
"It wouldn't work, Caleb," she said at last. "You may forgive me, but the past would always be between us. You'd do better to find another brainship, one that has never betrayed your high ideals." Preferably one that hasn't been commissioned for more than ten minutes.
"For myself—" Nancia sighed, "sadder but wiser," that's true, anyway. "I think it is more appropriate for me to petition Central that my temporary partnership with Forister be made permanent, or to find another brawn if Forister chooses to retire now." Please, please, don't let him do that.
"Well." At least Caleb's speech-making impulses had been knocked out temporarily. "If you really think . . ."
"I do," said Nancia, "and," she added firmly, "I will pay the penalty fee for requesting a brawn reassignment. It's not fair that you should bear any part of that burden."
But it was a little disappointing to see how quickly Caleb accepted the offer. . . .
* * *
The trial of the Nyota Five, as the gossip byters had dubbed Nancia's first passengers, was still in progress when she landed at Central Base some weeks later.
The solitary journey back, with no brawn or passengers to distract her, had given Nancia plenty of time to think . . . perhaps too much. She had no way of knowing how the trial was progressing or how the court had reacted to the testimony presented; in deference to High Families sensibilities, newsbeamers were not permitted in the courtroom and the gossipbyters had nothing but speculations to report. She didn't even know if the court would wish her cross-examined on the deposition she'd sent back on datahedron. Well, if they did, she was available now. And there'd be no new assignment until Forister was released from testifying and free to brawn her again. If he still wanted to, once he'd heard what was on her deposition . . . and what wasn't.
Nancia didn't have much time to brood over that possibility; she had hardly touched down at Base when a visitor was announced.
"Perez y de Gras requesting permission to board," the Central Base managing brain warned her in advance.
That was a welcome surprise! The last Nancia had heard from Flix was a bitstream packet from Kailas, mostly consisting of pictures of the seedy cafe where he'd found a synthocomming gig. He must have quit—or been fired. . . . Well, she wouldn't ask him about that. Nancia opened her outer doors and set the wall-sized display screens in the lounge to show the surprise she'd been preparing for him.
"Flix, how lovely, I didn't know you were . . ." she began joyfully as the airlock slid open. The words died away to a faint hiss from her port speaker as she took in the sight of the trim, gray-haired man who stood in the open airlock, surveying her interior with cool gray eyes. Nancia hastily blanked out the moving displays of her new, holo-enhanced, super-detailed SPACED OUT and replaced them with some quiet, correct images of still life paintings by Old Masters.
"As far as I know," said Javier Perez y de Gras, "he isn't. Although doubtless, now that I've been reassigned to Central, your little brother will find another squalid position on this planet from which to annoy me with the sight of his failure."
"Oh." Nancia hadn't previously compared the pattern of Flix's jauntings from gig to gig with her father's diplomatic assignments. Now she made a hasty scan of her restored memory banks and found a surprising number of correspondences. That was something she'd have to ask Flix about. Just now she really didn't feel up to discussing it with Daddy.
"I don't suppose," she said carefully, "that was what you came to see me about? Flix's career, I mean?"
Her father sniffed. "I don't consider that a career. You have a career, Nancia my dear, and by all accounts you've done quite well to date—a few errors in judgment, perhaps, but nothing that maturity and experience won't—"
This time Nancia knew what caused the flush of heat that swamped her upper deck circuits and the red haze that trembled in her visual sensors. For a moment she didn't speak, fearing that she would be unable