"Well," Dalt said, rising to his feet, "at least you're not a complete parasite."
("I resent that! We're partners ... a symbiosis!")
"I suppose you may come in handy now and then." Dalt sighed.
("I already have.")
"What's that supposed to mean?"
("I found a small neoplasm in your lung—middle lobe on the right. It might well have become malignant.")
"Then let's get back to the doc before it metastatizes!" Dalt said, and idly realized that a few hours ago he would have been worrying about "spread" rather than "metastasis."
("There's no need to worry, Steve. I killed it off.")
"How'd you do that?"
("I just worked through your vascular system and selectively cut off the blood supply to that particular group of cells."
"Well, thanks, Partner."
("No thanks necessary, I assure you. I did it for my own good as well as yours—I don't relish the idea of walking around in a cancer-ridden body any more than you do!")
Dalt removed his serf clothing in silence. The enormity of what had happened in that cave on Kwashi struck him now with full force. He had a built-in medical watchdog who would keep everything running smoothly. He smiled grimly as he donned ship clothes and suspended from his neck the glowing prismatic gem that he had first worn as Racso and had continued to wear after his cultural-survey assignment on Kwashi had been terminated. He'd have his health but he'd lost his privacy forever. He wondered if it was worth it.
("One other thing, Steve,") said the voice. ("I've accelerated the growth of your hair in the bald spot to maximum.")
Dalt put up a hand and felt a thick fuzz where before there had been only bare scalp. "Hey! You're right! It's really coming in!" He went to the mirror to take a look. "Oh, no!"
("Sorry about that, Steve. I couldn't see it so I wasn't aware there had been a color change. I'm afraid there's nothing I can do about that.")
Dalt stared in dismay at the patch of silvery gray in the center of his otherwise inky hair. "I look like a freak!"
("You can always dye it.") Dalt made a disgusted noise.
("I have a few questions, Steve,") the voice said in a hasty attempt to change the subject "What about?"
("About why you're going down to that planet tomorrow.")
"I'm going because I was once a member of the Federation cultural-survey team on Kwashi and because the Star Ways Corporation lost an experimental pilot brain down there. They got permission from the Federation to retrieve the brain only on the condition that a cultural-survey man does the actual retrieving."
("That's not what I meant. I want to know what's so important about the brain, just how much of the brain it actually is, and so on.")
"There's an easy way to find out," Dalt said, heading for the door. "We'll just go to the ship's library."
The library was near the hub of the ship and completely computer-operated. Dalt closed himself away in one of the tiny viewer booths and pushed his ID card into the awaiting slot.
The flat, dull tones of the computer's voice came from a hidden speaker.
"What do you wish, Mr. Dalt?"
"I might as well go the route: Let me see everything on the brain project."
Four microspools slid down a tiny chute and landed in the receptacle in front of Dalt. "I'm sorry, Mr. Dalt," said the computer, "but this is all your present status allows you to see."
("That should be enough, Steve. Feed them into the viewer.")
The story that unraveled from the spools was one of biologic and economic daring. Star Ways was fast achieving what amounted to a monopoly of the interstellar-warp-unit market and from there was expanding to peri-stellar drive. But unlike the typical established corporation, SW was pouring money into basic research. One of the prime areas of research was the development of a use for cultured human neural tissue. And James Barre had found a use that held great economic potential.
The prime expense of interstellar commercial travel, whether freight or passenger, was the crew. Good spacers were a select lot and hard to come by; running a ship took a lot of them. There had been many attempts to replace crews with computers but these had invariably failed due either to mass/volume problems or overwhelming maintenance costs. Barre's development of an "artificial" brain—by that he meant structured in vitro—seemed to hold an answer, at least for cargo ships.
After much trial and error with life-support systems and control linkages, a working prototype had finally been developed. A few short hops had been tried with a full crew standing by, and the results had been more than anyone had hoped for. So the prototype was prepared for a long interstellar journey with five scheduled stops—with cargo holds empty, of course. The run had gone quite well until the ship got into the Kwashi area. A single technician had been sent along to insure that nothing went too far awry, and, according to his story, he was sitting in his quarters when the ship suddenly came out of warp with the emergency/abandon ship signals blaring. He wasted no time in getting to a lifeboat and ejecting. The ship made a beeline for Kwashi and disappeared, presumably in a crash. That had been eight months ago.
No more information was available without special clearance.
"Well, that was a waste of time," Dalt said. "Are you addressing me, Mr. Dalt?" the computer asked. "No."
("There certainly wasn't much new information there,") the voice agreed.
Dalt pulled his card from the slot, thereby cutting the computer off from this particular viewer booth, before answering. Otherwise it would keep butting in.
"The theories now stand at either malfunction or foul play."
("Why foul play?")
"The spacers' guild, for one," Dalt said, standing. "Competing companies, for another. But since it crashed on a restricted splinter world, I favor the malfunction theory." As he stepped from the booth he glanced at the chronometer on the walclass="underline" 1900 hours ship-time. Jean would be waiting.
The cafeteria was nearly deserted when he arrived with Jean and the pair found an isolated table in a far corner.
"I really don't think you should dye your hair at all," Jean was saying as they placed their trays on the table and sat down. "I think that gray patch looks cute in a distinguished sort of way ... or do I mean distinguished in a cute sort of way?"
Dalt took the ribbing in good-natured silence.
"Steve!" she said suddenly. "How come you're eating with your left hand? I've never seen you do that before."
Dalt looked down. His fork was firmly grasped in his left hand. "That's strange," he said. "I didn't even realize it."
("I integrated a few circuits, so to speak, while you were asleep,") the voice said. ("It seemed rather ridiculous to favor one limb over another. You're now ambidextrous.")
Thanks for telling me, Partner!
("Sorry. I forgot.")
Dalt switched the fork to his right hand and Jean switched the topic of conversation.
"You know, Steve," she said, "you've never told me why you quit the cultural-survey group."
Dalt paused before answering. After the fall of Metep VII, last in a long line of self-styled "Emperors of the Outworlds," a new independent spirit gave rise to a loose organization of worlds called simply the Federation.
"As you know," he said finally, "the Federation has a long-range plan of bringing splinter worlds—willing ones, that is—back into the fold. But it was found that an appalling number had regressed into barbarism. So the cultural surveys were started to evaluate splinter worlds and decide which could be trusted with modern technology. There was another rule which I didn't fully appreciate back then but have come to believe in since, and that's where the trouble began."
"What rule was that?"
"It's not put down anywhere in so many words, but it runs to the effect that if a splinter-world culture had started developing on a path at variance with the rest of humanity, it is to be left alone."