The Ship Who Won by Anne McCaffrey, Jody Lynn Nye Read Free Book Online

the known
    galaxy, and communication with friends and other B&B
    ship partnerships. Carialle chose not to admit to Keff that
    she was as hooked on First Contact as he was. Not only
    was there the intellectual and emotional thrill of being the
    first human team to see something totally new, but also the
    bogies had less chance of crowding in on her ... if she
    looked farther and further ahead.
    For a shellperson, with advanced data-retrieval capabilities and superfast recall, every memory existed as if it had
    happened only moments before. Forgetting required a
    specific effort: the decision to wipe an event out of ones
    databanks. In some cases, that fine a memory was a curse,
    forcing Carialle to reexamine over and over again the
    events leading up to the accident. Again and again she was
    tormented as the merciless and inexorable sequence
    pushed its way, still crystal clear, to the surface-as it did
    once more during this silent running.
    Sixteen years ago, on behalf of the Courier Service, she
    and her first brawn, Fanine, paid a covert call to a small
    space-repair facility on the edge of Central Worlds space.
    Spacers who stopped there had complained to CenCom of
    being fleeced. Huge, sometimes ruinously expensive
    purchases with seemingly faultless electronic documentation were charged against travelers' personal numbers,
    often months after they had left SSS-267. Fanine discreetly gathered evidence of a complex system of graft,
    payoffs and kickbacks, confirming CenComs suspicions.
    She had sent out a message to say they had corroborative
    details and were returning with it.
    They never expected sabotage, but they should have-Carialle corrected herself: she should have-been paying
    closer attention to what the dock hands were doing in the
    final check-over they gave her before the CF-963
    departed. Carialle could still remember how the fuel felt as
    it glugged into her tank: cold, strangely cold, as if it had
    been chilled in vacuum. She could have refused that load
    of fuel, should have.
    As the ship flew back toward the Central Worlds, the
    particulate matter diluted in the tanks was kept quiescent
    by the real fuel. Gradually, her engines sipped away that
    butter, finally reaching the compound in the bottom other
    tanks. When there was more aggregate than fuel, the
    charge reached critical mass, and ignited.
    Her sensors shut down at the moment of explosion but
    that moment-10:54:02.351-was etched in her memory.
    That was the moment when Fanine s life ended and Carialle was cast out to float in darkness.
    She became aware first of the bitter cold. Her internal
    temperature should have been a constant 37# Celsius, and
    cabin temperature holding at approximately twenty-one.
    Carialle sent an impulse to adjust the heat but could not
    find it. Motor functions were at a remove, just out of her
    reach. She felt as if all her limbs-for a brainship, all the
    motor synapses-and most horribly, her vision, had been
    removed. She was blind and helpless. Almost all of her
    external systems were gone except for a very few sound
    and skin sensors. She called out soundlessly for Fanine: for
    an answer that would never come.
    Shock numbed the terror at first. She was oddly
    detached, as if this could not be happening to her. Impas-sively she reviewed what she knew. There had been an
    explosion. Hull integrity had been breached. She could not
    communicate with Fanine. Probably Fanine was dead.
    Carialle had no visual sensing equipment, or no control of
    it, if it still remained intact. Not being able to see was the
    worst part. If she could see, she could assess the situation
    and make an objective judgment. She had sustenance and
    air recirculation, so the emergency power supply had survived when ship systems were cut, and she retained her
    store of chemical compounds and enzymes.
    First priority was to signal for help. Feeling her way
    through the damaged net of synapses, she detected the
    connection for the rescue beacon. Without