"I claim refuge, milady," he replied, bowing with exaggerated flourishes.
"And a cup of coffee?"
"You're out of it. Those fardling circuit-clowns drank it all up. But you're off bounds and incommunicado 'sfar as Cencom knows, my orders, m'love -so you're the safest place for me to be."
"You're not in trouble over the Beta Corvi. . ."
"Trouble?" and he sat down on the couch facing her column, suddenly collapsing limply back against the cushions. "Hell no. Not my Helva gal. Not Niall Parollan, Supervisor extraordinary. But we are," and a wild sweep of his arm suggested galactic rather than service parameters. "Well, you're not to be bothered, and I'm not to be bothered, and by morning, maybe the ol' brains'll be ready for more draining and dredging and. . ." his voice ground down to a whisper.
Helva thought he had gone to sleep, but then she saw that he was regarding her through narrowed eyes.
"Did anyone remember to tell you how far you exceeded optimimum expectation? Did the Chief remember to mention you've got two more commendations on your distinguished record? And a whopping bonus!" He pounded the couch in emphasis. "You'll Pay-off, if you keep up this rate." Then his voice softened. "Did I remember to thank you, Helva, for pulling off a lousy, fardling, stinking job you got conned into. . ."
"Not by you, Parollan. . ."
"Ha!" Niall Parollan arched his body to let out that burst of laughter before he sank again into the cushions. "Well, you did a great job, gal. I don't think another ship could have pulled it off."
"Maybe another ship would have brought all her passengers back,"
"Of all the noisome fardles, Helva," and Parollan sat straight up, "I don't need that kind of irrational thinking from you! Prane and Kurla had their own reasons for transition; so did Chadress. All three profited. As for Ansra Colmer, best place for that bitch. Outsmarted herself for once. There is true justice in the universe, and the Corviki never heard of Hammurabi!"
He lay back again, lacing his fingers behind his head.
"I like to see 'em sweat, those nardy bastards in Procedures," he chuckled.
"Over the bodies? Wouldn't decent burial be indicated by now?"
"Why? The bodies are still clinically alive, Helva. Your body is clinically dead," he added with utter disregard for the tacit strictures on that subject in the presence of a shell-person. "And neither you nor I, nor anyone else on this Base tonight thinks you're a zombie. What does constitute death, Helva? The lack of mind, or soul, or what-have-you? Or the lack of independent motion? You're mobile enough, my pet, and you can't move a muscle."
"You're drunk, Niall Parollan."
"Oh, no! Parollan's a long way from drunk. I'm just hanging loose, gal, hanging loose." He sat up in a single movement that denied any impairment of motor control. "Ethically, socially, you delivered four corpses to that Fleet ship outside Beta Corvi. Four mechanically functioning but empty husks. And their original inhabitants, owners, what-have-you, won't be back in 'em."
He was on his feet, striding toward Helva. "There's your chance, gal. Opt out. . . opt out into Kurla's body, it's the youngest. Or Ansra's. Or Chadress' for that matter, if you'd like a change of pace."
For one blinding second of whirling possibilities, Helva considered the staggering proposal. As she had fleetingly considered remaining in the Corvi shell. Had she really presented an unbiased report to the specialists?
"Presuming, of course, that I want to be a mobile human. Remember, Parollan," she managed to answer in a reasonable voice, "I've just been in another body. I find I prefer myself."
Parollan was staring at her with an inscrutable intentness. He put one hand out to stroke the smooth metal on the exact spot where the seam closed access to her inner shell.
"Well put, Helva, well put." He turned and walked to the galley. He was dialing for soup, not a stimulant, Helva noticed with relief. He sat down again in the main cabin before he broke the heat seal. The wisp of escaping steam seemed to mesmerize him, for he shook his head as the pop of the released top broke the semitrance.
"I didn't think you'd go it," he remarked in a casual tone.
"Why did you ask then? Testing, Supervisor?"
He glanced up, chuckling at the purring tone in her voice.
"Not you, m'gal. . ."
"And I am not your gal. . ."
"Irrelevant!" and he took a careful sip of the hot soup.
"Then why did you ask?" she insisted.
He shrugged. "Seemed like a once-in-a-lifetime chance to get you out of that titanium chastity belt."
Laughter burst from Helva. "I've been out. On Corvi."
"Tried it once and didn't like it?"
"Movement? Freedom?" she asked, deliberately ignoring the double meaning expressed in the cocked eyebrow and malicious grin on Parollan's face.
"Physical movement," he qualified, his manner wary. "Physical freedom."
"Define 'physical'. As this ship, I have more physical power, more physical freedom, than you ever will know. I think, I feel, I breathe. My heart beats, blood does flow through my veins, my lungs do work: not as yours, but they are functioning."
"So are the hearts and veins and lungs of those four. . . four nothings in the life support room of Base Hospital. But they are dead."
"Am I?"
"Are you?"
"You're drunk, Parollan," she accused in a flat, cold voice.
"I'm not drunk, Helva. I'm discussing a deep moral issue with you and you evade me."
"Evade Niall Parollan? Or Supervisor Parollan?"
"Niall Parollan."
"Why are you discussing this deep moral issue with Helva, Niall Parollan?"
Unexpectedly he shrugged and leaned back, his shoulders sagging as he lapped his fingers around the soup cup and regarded its contents moodily.
"Passes time," he said finally. "We both have time on our hands tonight. Time that must be passed some way or other. Silly to waste our valuable time (and he gave a sardonic laugh) in small talk. Might just as well discuss a deep moral issue which, I might point out, you dumped into our laps. Which no one's going to resolve anyway. You should've made the Corvi clear their garbage before you cleared their fartful atmosphere. Say, did you smell that stuff they breathe?"
Helva found herself answering his question while another part of her rapidly churning mind wondered at his remarkable behavior.
"I, Helva, have no olfactory sense, so I, Helva, wouldn't have noticed how the Corviki atmosphere 'smelled'. None of the others mentioned it, so I assume that, for Corvi entities, the atmospheric odor was unexceptional."
"Aha!" The thin forefinger jabbed at her accusingly. "You don't have that physical ability."
"Nor am I sure that I want it. . . except to smell coffee, which everyone says smells particularly pleasant."
"Remember to order some in the morning."
"Order's already on file with Commissary," Helva said sweetly.
"That's my gal."
"I'm not your gal. And, at the risk of being a bore, why are you here, Niall Parollan?"
"I don't want to be bothered by those fardling specs," he muttered, jerking a thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the Base Tower, "and I would be if they could reach me. They can't here because Cencom is not allowed to admit any calls to you, Helva XH-834, until 0800 because you, Helva m'gal, have had enough of them for one revolution. Haven't you?" His question crackled in the air. "Don't deny it," he advised when she didn't answer immediately. "I know you well enough. . . oh, I know you, gal, like no other man ever has. . . and you were so close to telling them to stuff it, you were so close to. . ." his voice trailed off briefly. "This assignment was a lot rougher on you than you'll ever admit."