"The Roving Star has more than one cat?"
She nodded. "A senior citizen and two former foundlings who now sort of run the place under her supervision."
Rael rubbed the big cat under the chin with the tips of fingers obviously well accustomed to that delicate work and received a rumbling purr as a reward.
Reluctantly, she put him down once more and came to her feet. She sniffed the scent-rich air appreciatively. "I'd know you had a master chef aboard even if Mara hadn't apprised me of that fact. — Thyme, sage, basil, honey seed, sharp grass—all the old faithfuls, and I detect some real delicacies as well."
"Detect? We're not near the spices at all . . ."
"I've got sensitive senses, smell included." Her nose wrinkled. "That's not always an advantage on some of the holes we visit. Besides, I've worked in the Star's hydro quite a bit and more or less know what to expect in a good one."
One familiar aroma was missing. "You should have some lavender," she told him. "There's nothing like it for freshening the air, and it's not overpowering even in the smallest cabin."
Three whistles sounded over the intercom. "Lift-off coming," Dane remarked, unnecessarily since the signal was universal to the starlanes.
They carefully sealed the hydro door after seeing Sinbad out, then scrambled up the ladder with the ease of long
custom to strap down Solar Queen would be would come the jump to Canuche of Halio.
5
Boredom was the great plague of interstellar travel, but Rael Cofort suffered very little from that in the days that followed. Chiefly, she worked with Craig Tau, but she spent some time with every department, more or less depending upon current need and her expertise in the work at hand.
It was well after mess time but she was still at Tau's terminal, obviously deeply involved in the task before her and quite oblivious to their presence, when the chief Medic and Jellico came into the surgery. She seemed equally unaware of the discomfort of the position she had for some unexplained reason chosen to adopt, sitting so far back that her arms had to stretch to their full length for her fingers to reach the keyboard.
The change in perspective won by another step provided the answer. A furry head and paw rested on the woman's upper right arm. The remainder of the big cat extended down her trunk and filled her lap.
Sinbad's eyes opened at the men's approach. He gave a wide yawn, then leapt gracefully to the floor, where he stretched to his considerable supple length. Still purring in feline contentment, he strode off, tail high, to resume his patrol of the starship that was his universe and domain.
Cofort smiled tenderly even as she flexed her stiff arms.
"I love those little fellows so much that sometimes I think I must have been one."
"Reincarnation?" Tau asked, curious as always about the magic and beliefs of others.
"Aye," she responded, still smiling, "but the reference was poetic. I think we humans are granted only one voyage in which to prove ourselves. — I like to imagine that Sinbad's kind might return more often, though, at least when and where they choose. Their life spans are so much shorter than ours that it's nice to feel we might be reunited with a friend of our youth at a later point in our lives."
She eyed them for a moment, as if waiting for some challenge, then flexed her shoulders again and glanced at the screen. "The fifth section's almost in. It's slow going, but complex enough to make the inputting fairly interesting work."
"Exhausting work," Jellico snapped. "You look burned down."
The Medic studied her. "You have some Soft-Tear, I presume?"
"Of course." The soothing drops were a widely used remedy for eyestrain throughout the Federation.
"Break off here and use it, then. This is a long-term project and won't be finished before we reach Canuche whether we kill ourselves on it or not."
"I know, Doctor," she agreed ruefully. "I just find it hard to stop sometimes once my navputer's programmed for a job like this, especially when things're moving well."
She came to her feet. "Mind if I see Queex first. Sir?" she asked Miceal. "I missed dropping in on him today, and ... "
"I know. I haven't enjoyed a moment's quiet since noon.
— See him by all means, and from now on you are to spend at least thirty minutes every day entertaining him. I need some peace, at least in my own quarters."
"Thank you, Captain!"
"That was not meant as some sort of reward, Doctor Cofort," he told her severely.
"I know. Sir, but it is all the same."
The woman took her leave of them after that with a wave of her hand.
Jellico watched her disappear through the door. If she was tired there was no sign of it in her step, but he still fixed his comrade with a stern look. "I want to knock full value out other, Craig, not kill her. This isn't a slave ship."
Tau turned to the locker where he kept his implements and more common medications. "I can't see that one meekly submitting to abuse. — Roll up your sleeve. Captain. This won't hurt a bit."
"You say that every time."
"True, when I'm giving an immunization shot. It's medical tradition."
He stopped talking while he prepared the laser needle, then continued. "It also seems to be tradition that no ship's crew is ever on a nice, convenient, easily remembered schedule to receive them."
"You could drop this one for all the good it does," his commander grumbled. "No matter how many shots you get against Quandon Fever, a new mutation inevitably crops up, and if you're exposed you get sick despite them all."
"Not as sick. We hope. Besides, why make a home for the old versions? None ofthem're good tenants."
By the time Jellico felt the spark of heat from the needle, Tau had already deactivated it. He glanced briefly at the tiny red spot it had left then rolled his sleeve back into place. "How's your assistant doing?"
"Cofort? If I'd placed an order directly with the Spirit ruling space, I couldn't have gotten better, at least not for this study of mine."
"It's more or less in her line, isn't it? She's an epidemiologist."
"That title scarcely describes it. Rael Cofort knows just about every detail of every plague since premechanical Terra, and she's very nearly as knowledgeable about mostly every other major disaster as well. She's been even more help correlating data and interpreting it than she has
been with the inputting."
"What about practical medicine?"
The other shrugged. "Luck's been with us, and we haven't had to put her skills to the test."
Craig lowered himself into the chair Rael had vacated.
"What do the others report?"
"According to Johan, she's competent. No genius, maybe, but he can use her. Tang would put her on the screens or transceivers any time. Steen says she's got the theory, some of it pretty obscure, but real-life calculations're another matter. She probably could bring a ship through if pressed. He just wouldn't care to be aboard
when she tried."
"Astrogation's a specialized art," the Medic observed.
"So's surgery. None of us flyboys'd want to take a crack at that."
"Frank's opinion?"
"He wouldn't need to have a blaster put to his head to make him eat her cooking, but he'd rather keep her chained to the hydro. Claims she could pull fruiting plants out of deep space."
Tau nodded. "She seems to like dealing with living things, which is natural enough for a Medic, I suppose. At any rate, it can get results. — Trade's people work on a grand scale. What has Van to say?"
Jellico spread his hands wide. "That she knows goods, especially luxury items, but whether she can do anything with them is anyone's guess. Her dealings with us are no indication. We're her own kind, and she was holding the blaster."