The scout's face turned starkly white, but Helva plunged on.
"Neither one of your parents was stupid enough to have ignored their RCA duty. Right? So their seed is on file. Take some of your mother's and his father's and. . ."
Kira's eyes widened and her jaw dropped, her face lighting with incredulous radiance. Tears streamed down her cheeks. Delicately she stretched out her hand, touching the access panel softly.
Helva was ridiculously, embarrassingly delighted at her acceptance of the idea. Then Kira drew her breath in sharply, her face concerned.
"But for you. . . wouldn't you take your mother's and. . ."
"No," Helva said sharply, then added more gently, "that won't be necessary." She knew in mind and heart now that the resolution of grief is highly individual, that both she and Kira had reached it by different means, just as Theoda had.
Kira looked unaccountably stricken, as if she had no right to take the solution Helva offered if Helva did not, too.
"After all," the ship chuckled, "there aren't many women," and Helva used the word proudly, knowing that she had passed as surely from girlhood to woman's estate as any of her mobile sisters, "who give birth to 110,000 babies at one time."
Kira dissolved into laughter, crowing with delight over Helva's analogy. She snatched up her guitar, strumming a loud introductory arpeggio. Then the two, ship and scout, surprised the stars with a swinging Schubert serenade as they sped toward Nekkar and deliverance.
Dramatic Mission
Helva turned the sound down, pleased that all the embryo-tube racks and the great beakers of nutrients were being pulled out, but not at all pleased with the mauling the crewmen were giving her in the process.
They didn't really need to add to the scars already made by the metal frames on her decks, or the strains of spilled nutrients on her bulkheads. But she was silent because even the pilot's cabin showed unmistakable marks of long tenure and Kira Falernova had been a tidy person. However, Helva had no wish to go to Regulus and show this shoddy interior to whichever brawns were waiting to team up with her.
She said as much to the other brain ship sitting near her, to one side of the commercial pads at the Nekkar spaceport.
"That's a silly waste of credit, Helva," Amon, the TA-618, replied, his voice slightly peevish. "How'd'you know your new brawn will like your taste? Let him, or her, pay for it out of his quarters' allowance. Really, Helva, use some sense or you'll never buy free. And I don't see why you're so eager to be saddled with a brawn anyway."
"I like people."
Amon made a rude noise. Since he'd landed, he had steadily complained to her about his mobile partner's deficiencies and shortcomings. Helva had reminded herself that Amon and Trace had been together over 15 standard years and that was said to be the most difficult period of any long association.
"When you've had a series of brawns aboard you as long as I have, you won't be so philanthropic. And when you know what your brawn is going to say before he says it, then you'll have a little idea of the strain I'm currently under."
"Kira Falernova and I were 3 years on this storkrun. . ."
"Doesn't signify. You knew it was a short-term assignment. You can put up with anything on that basis. It's the inescapable knowledge that you've got to go on and on, 25 to 30 years' worth. . ."
"If he's all that bad, opt a change," Helva said.
"And add a cancellation penalty to what I'm already trying to pay?"
"Oh, I forgot." Her reply, Helva realized the moment the words were out of her mouth, was not very politic. Among his many grievances with the galaxy at large, the extortionate price of repairs and maintenance made by outworld stations ranked high. Amon had run afoul of a space-debris storm and the damage had required a replating of half his nose. Central Worlds had insisted that the cause was his negligence, so it was therefore not a service-incurred or compensable accident.
"Furthermore, if I opted," Amon went on sourly, "I'd have to take whoever is up next for assignment with no refusal right."
"That's too true."
"I'm not fat with double bonuses from grateful Nekkarese."
Helva swallowed a fast retort to such an unfair remark and meekly said she hoped that things would soon look up. Amon wanted a sympathetic listener, not an adviser.
"You take the advice of one who's been around, Helva," Amon went on, mollified by her contrition, "and take every solo assignment you can get. Rack up bonuses while you can. Then you'll be in a position to bargain. I'm not. Oh, here he comes!"
"He's in a hurry, too."
"Wonder what lit his jets." Amon sounded so disagreeable that Helva began to wonder just how much the brawn was at fault. Brain ships were people, too.
Just then, Helva could her the brawn's excited greeting over the open ship-to-ship band.
"Amon, man, get us cleared and lifted. We got to get back to Regulus Base on the double. I just heard. . ."
The band went dead.
It was so like Amon to be selfish with good news, too, that Helva did not take offense. Good luck to him, she thought as she turned on the outside scanners and watched him lift off. If he did get a good assignment and the delivery bonus, he could pay off his debt. He might even resolve most of his problems with his brawn. The man had seemed nice enough when he'd paid a courtesy call on Kira and herself the day they arrived at Nekkar. But it was petty of him Helva thought. . . If the brawn had heard, the news could not come via tight beam.
"Nekkar Control, XH-834 calling."
"Helva? Had my hand on the switch to call you. Our ground crew treating you right? Anything you want them to do, you just let 'em know," answered the affable com man.
Considering Nekkar's recent disaster, you'd think they'd be as sour as Amon.
"I was wondering if you could tell me why the TA-618 left in such a hurry."
"Say, yes, that's something, isn't it? Never know who's around in the next system over, do you? I always said, a galaxy's got room for all kinds. But who'd ever think people. . . I guess you could call 'em people. . . would want any old archaic plays. Can you imagine that?" and infuriatingly the com man chuckled.
Amon had problems knowing ahead of time what his man'd say? Helva thought, impatiently waiting for this jovial soul to say anything worth listening to.
"Well, not really, because you haven't told me what you heard yet," Helva cut in as the man seemed likely to continue editorializing.
"Oh, sorry. Thought you ships'd all have your ears. . . oh, pardon the slip. . . to the rumor-block. Well, now, generally my sources are very reliable and this came to me from two sources, as I was telling Pilot Trace. A survey ship out Beta Corvi way registered some regulated-energy emissions. Pinpointed them to the sixth planet which had. . . of all improbabilities. . . a methane-ammonia atmosphere. Never heard of any sentients before developing in that kind of environment, have you?"
"No. Please go on."
"Well, before the crew could get an exploratory probe treated to withstand that kind of air; ha, ha, air, that's good."
"Consider that what we breathe might be poisonous to them," Helva suggested.
"Oh, true, too true. Any rate, before the crew could shake a leg, the Corviki had probed them. What do you think of that?"
"Fascinating. I'm hanging on your words."
"Well, those Survey men are on their toes, I'll tell you. Didn't let an opportunity like this slip from their grasp. Offered to exchange scientific information with the Beta Corviki and invited them to join the Central Worlds Federation. Say," and the man paused to think, "how'd the survey know they were high enough on the Civ-scale to qualify right off if they hadn't even got a probe down to the surface of the planet?"