“She dismissed me, sir.”
He nodded, in a way that more or less accepted my presence there. I took a tentative step inside. Noticed by a born-man, one doesn’t vanish when his back is turned. Griffin walked the length of the U at controls, stopped by Modred and looked back again at me. “You understand what we’ve got here?”
I swallowed against the tightness in my throat and nodded. “Yes, sir.”
“How’s Dela taking this?”
She had told me to take Griffin’s orders, even if she really didn’t want me to; and I stood confused, not knowing what I owed where; but I’m high-order, and I don’t blank in choices. “I think she’s scared, sir; and I don’t think she wants to think about it for a while.”
That at least was the truth; and it kept Lance out of it. I didn’t want Griffin dashing back there to comfort Dela, not now, no.
Griffin ran a hand through his pretty golden hair, and he leaned standing against the chair absent Percy used, looking mortally tired. I felt sorry for him then, and I was not in the habit of feeling sorry for Griffin. He was trying. He had sent Lynn and Percy to rest; and Lance and Viv ... even if no one was able to. He tried to solve this thing. So did the crew ... fighting for the Maid, even if Dela saw no hope in it.
“You know what a Bridge is?” he asked. “Ship to ship?”
I nodded.
“And Dela—what does she say?”
“Nothing,” I said. “But she would understand if she saw that.”
He looked still very tired. Looked around at all of us, Gawain and Modred, and back to me. “You’re good,” he said. “You’re very good.”
I made a kind of bow of the head, pleased to be told that, even by a stranger. We knew our worth; but it was still good to hear.
“What they’re doing,” Griffin said, and all at once I was conscious that the hammering had stilled for a while, “is linking into all those ships. That means that something’s been alive and doing that a long, long time.”
“Yes, sir,” I said, contemplating the age of those ships that had come here before us. I looked round the control center, a nervous gesture, missing the sound. “It doesn’t take long to set up a Bridge, does it?”
“No,” Griffin said. “But I daresay they’re jury-rigging. They. It. We have to do something to stop it. You understand that. When you talk to Dela—” He spoke very, very softly, in conspiracy. “When you talk to her, believe that. Protest it in her ear. For her sake. It’s your duty, isn’t it?—Where’s Lance?”
I must have flinched. “Below, sir.” We can lie, in duty. He looked at me—he could not have suspected when he asked that question; me, with my face—he had to suspect something behind that flinching, had to think, and know why one of us would lie, and for whom.
“When you see him,” he said, ever so quietly, only that tired look on his face, “tell him I’ll see the whole staff up here at 1000 this morning. I want to talk to all of you at once. And keep it quiet. I don’t want to frighten Dela. You understand that.”
I nodded. He walked away himself, his hands locked behind him, and stopped and looked at the screens. I stood there, while Modred and Gawain consulted and did things with the comp that showed up in the image on the screens.
It looked uglier and uglier, defined, where before the bleeding smears of light had masked all detail. It took on colors, greens and blues. Finally Griffin walked over to the side and looked at Gawain and Modred. “You’ve got that inventory search run.”
“Yes,” Modred said, and reached and picked up a handful of printout. Griffin took it. The hammering started again, and even Modred reacted to it, a human glance at the walls about us. Griffin swore, shook his head.
“Go get some rest,” he told them. “I’m doing the same.”
He started away then, and I moved out of the doorway, to show respect when a born-man wanted past. My heart was beating very fast: com, I was thinking, I could get to com before Griffin could get to Dela’s rooms; I could think of something casual to say—something; but Griffin delayed, fixed me with a strangely sad look. “I’m going back to myquarters,” Griffin said.
I felt my face go hot. I stood there, he walked out, and I didn’t make the call. I walked down the corridor after him, headed my own way, for the lift that would take me down to the crew quarters.
Vivien trailed after me, maybe the others too; but I watched Griffin’s broad back, his shoulders bowed as if he were very tired, his head down, and for a moment he looked so like Lance in one of his sorrows that I found myself hurting for him.
I knew pain when I saw it. Remember ... it’s my function.
I wished I might go to him, might balance things, set it all right by magic. I walked faster, to overtake him; but my nerve failed me, with the thought that I had no instruction from Dela, and I could not side against her. Not twice. I stopped, close by the lift, and Viv pushed the button, opening the door.
Tap, the sound came against the hull. Tap-bang.
IX
In love, if love be love, if love be ours,
Faith and unfaith can ne’er be equal powers:
Unfaith in aught is want of faith in all.
We fled into the crew quarters, Gawain and Modred, Vivien and I ... quietly as we could, but Lynn and Percy lifted their heads from their pillows all the same. We started taking off boots, settling down for a little rest.
“Where’s Lance?” Gawain asked, all innocent.
“Dela called,” I said, from my cot where I had lain down next Lance’s vacant one; and Gawain’s face took on an instant apprehension of things. Viv looked up from taking off her stockings. I closed my eyes and folded my hands on my middle, uncommunicative, trying to shut out the sound from the hull. It was down to a familiar pattern now ... tap-tap-tap. It grew fainter. I thought of the tubes like branching arteries. Maybe they were working somewhere farther up, at some branching. I imagined such a thing growing over the Maid, a basketry of veins, wrapping us about. I shuddered and tried to think of something pleasant. About the dinner table with the artificial candles aglow up and down it, dark wood set with lace and crystal and loaded with fine food and wines. I would like a glass right now, I thought. There were times when I would have gone to the gallery and stolen a bottle. I didn’t feel I should. Share and share alike, my lady had said; and the good wine was a thing we would run out of.
Supposing we lasted long enough.
There was silence. I opened my eyes.
“It stopped,” Percy said, very hushed.
“Whatever they’re doing,” Modred said, “they’ll have it done sooner or later. I’m only surprised it’s taken this long.”
“Stop it,” Vivien said, very sharp, sitting upright on her bed, and I rolled over to face them, distressed by Viv’s temper. “If you’d done your jobs,” Viv said, “we wouldn’t be in this mess. And if you did something instead of sit and talk about it we might get out.”
“Someone,” Lynn said, “might go out on the hull with a cutter.”
“In that?” Percy asked. That was my thought; my stomach heaved at the idea.
“I could try it,” Lynn said.
“You’re valuable,” Modred said. “The gain would be short term and the risk is out of proportion to the gain.”
Like that: Modred’s voice never varied ... like Viv’s sums and accounts. I had had another way of putting it all dammed up behind my teeth. But the crew wasn’t my business, any more than it was Viv’s.
“What are you going to do?” Viv asked. “What are you doing about this thing? Our lady depends on you to do something.”
“Let them be,” I said, and Viv looked at me, at me, Elaine, who did my lady’s hair and had no authority to talk to Vivien. “If it was your job to run the ship you could tell them what to do, but they’ve done everything right so far or we’d none of us be alive.”
“They left us grappled to this thing. Was thatright? They talkedto that thing instead of breaking us loose on the instant. Was that right?”