Partnership by Anne McCaffrey, Margaret Ball Read Free Book Online
Authors: Anne McCaffrey, Margaret Ball
the first direct address she'd received since her passengers boarded and she lifted off from Central. "I hope you weren't counting on me to protect you!"
Blaize gave a soft, satisfied chuckle. "Not at all, dear lady. Until this moment I wasn't even sure what — or who — you were." He lifted an imaginary cap and mimed an extravagant bow. "Allow me to introduce myself," he murmured as he straightened again. "Blaize Armontillado-Perez y Medoc. And you?"
It was too late to retreat into the silence that had protected her so for. Nancia gave a mental shrug — no more than a quick flashing of connectors — and decided that she might as well converse with the brat.
She'd been starting to get lonely, anyway; the isolation of deep space was too great a contrast after her years of comfortable, constant multi-channel input and output with her classmates in Laboratory Schools. "XN-935,"
Nancia said grudgingly. And then, because the call letters seemed inadequate, "Nancia Perez y de Gras."
"A cousin, a veritable cousin!" Blaize crowed with unabashed delight. "So tell me, cousin, what's a nice girl like you doing convoying a rabble of riffraff like us?"
The question was uncomfortably close to Nancia's own opinion of her passengers. "How did you know I was a brainship?" she countered.
"The liftoff procedures could have been performed by an AI drone. But somehow I didn't really think the Medoc clan and the rest of our loving families would have sent us off to jaunt through Singularity on automatic. Wouldn't be fitting to the dignity of the High Families, y'know, to have a packet of metachips responsible for our safety instead of a human brain."
"You don't have much respect for your family, do you? No wonder they're sending you off to a fringe world. They're probably afraid you'll embarrass them-"
For a moment Blaize's freckled race looked cold and hard and infinitely sad. Then, so quickly that a human eye would hardly have recognized the brief betrayal, he grinned and flashed a salute at Nancia's column.
"Absolutely. Just one minor correction. They're not afraid I'll embarrass them. They're bloody sure of it!"
Pulling out one of the padded chairs, he seated himself cross-legged in the middle of the cabin, arms folded, and beamed at Nancia's column as though he hadn't a care in the world. She retrieved the image of his race a moment earlier and projected it on interior space, comparing the bleak-eyed young man of the recording with the smiling boy in the cabin. What could be hurting him so deeply? Against her will, she felt a twinge of sympathy for this spoiled scion, this disgrace to the High Families.
"And do you intend to?" she asked in carefully neutral tones.
"What? Oh—disgrace them?" Blaize shrugged a little too gracefully. Nancia began to wonder how many of his seemingly casual gestures were rehearsed. "No, it's too late now. Sure, I had fantasies when I was a kid.
But I'm a little old for running away now, don't you think?"
"What—to join the circus?"
For another split second, the mobile face before her matched the bleak image she'd stored. "No. The Space Academy. Actually," Blaize said in a voice as carefully neutral as Nancia's own, "I used to think I'd train as a brawn — Don't laugh; it was a kid's idea. But I never 38
Anne McCaffrey & Margaret Batt
could imagine anything better than working with a brainship. To fly between the stars, saving lives and worlds, partnered with a living ship to learn the dance of space...." His voice cracked on the last word. "I told you. Kids have dumb ideas."
"It doesn't seem like such a dumb idea to me," Nantia told him. "Why did you give it up? Did somebody tell you brawns have to be six feet tall and built like...
like Polyon de Gras-Waldheim?"
"Give it up!" Blaize echoed. "I didn't give it up. Iran away three times. The first time I actually got into the Space Academy, too. Took the open tests, forged papers saying I was a war orphan, won a
Blaize gave a soft, satisfied chuckle. "Not at all, dear lady. Until this moment I wasn't even sure what — or who — you were." He lifted an imaginary cap and mimed an extravagant bow. "Allow me to introduce myself," he murmured as he straightened again. "Blaize Armontillado-Perez y Medoc. And you?"
It was too late to retreat into the silence that had protected her so for. Nancia gave a mental shrug — no more than a quick flashing of connectors — and decided that she might as well converse with the brat.
She'd been starting to get lonely, anyway; the isolation of deep space was too great a contrast after her years of comfortable, constant multi-channel input and output with her classmates in Laboratory Schools. "XN-935,"
Nancia said grudgingly. And then, because the call letters seemed inadequate, "Nancia Perez y de Gras."
"A cousin, a veritable cousin!" Blaize crowed with unabashed delight. "So tell me, cousin, what's a nice girl like you doing convoying a rabble of riffraff like us?"
The question was uncomfortably close to Nancia's own opinion of her passengers. "How did you know I was a brainship?" she countered.
"The liftoff procedures could have been performed by an AI drone. But somehow I didn't really think the Medoc clan and the rest of our loving families would have sent us off to jaunt through Singularity on automatic. Wouldn't be fitting to the dignity of the High Families, y'know, to have a packet of metachips responsible for our safety instead of a human brain."
"You don't have much respect for your family, do you? No wonder they're sending you off to a fringe world. They're probably afraid you'll embarrass them-"
For a moment Blaize's freckled race looked cold and hard and infinitely sad. Then, so quickly that a human eye would hardly have recognized the brief betrayal, he grinned and flashed a salute at Nancia's column.
"Absolutely. Just one minor correction. They're not afraid I'll embarrass them. They're bloody sure of it!"
Pulling out one of the padded chairs, he seated himself cross-legged in the middle of the cabin, arms folded, and beamed at Nancia's column as though he hadn't a care in the world. She retrieved the image of his race a moment earlier and projected it on interior space, comparing the bleak-eyed young man of the recording with the smiling boy in the cabin. What could be hurting him so deeply? Against her will, she felt a twinge of sympathy for this spoiled scion, this disgrace to the High Families.
"And do you intend to?" she asked in carefully neutral tones.
"What? Oh—disgrace them?" Blaize shrugged a little too gracefully. Nancia began to wonder how many of his seemingly casual gestures were rehearsed. "No, it's too late now. Sure, I had fantasies when I was a kid.
But I'm a little old for running away now, don't you think?"
"What—to join the circus?"
For another split second, the mobile face before her matched the bleak image she'd stored. "No. The Space Academy. Actually," Blaize said in a voice as carefully neutral as Nancia's own, "I used to think I'd train as a brawn — Don't laugh; it was a kid's idea. But I never 38
Anne McCaffrey & Margaret Batt
could imagine anything better than working with a brainship. To fly between the stars, saving lives and worlds, partnered with a living ship to learn the dance of space...." His voice cracked on the last word. "I told you. Kids have dumb ideas."
"It doesn't seem like such a dumb idea to me," Nantia told him. "Why did you give it up? Did somebody tell you brawns have to be six feet tall and built like...
like Polyon de Gras-Waldheim?"
"Give it up!" Blaize echoed. "I didn't give it up. Iran away three times. The first time I actually got into the Space Academy, too. Took the open tests, forged papers saying I was a war orphan, won a
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