Tia returned to her papers, keeping a running statistical analysis and cross-tabulations on anything that seemed interesting. And there were things that seemed to be showing up, actually. Pockets of mineral depletions in the area around the EsKay sites; an astonishing similarity in the periodicity and seasonality of the planets and planetoids. Insofar as a Mars-type world could have seasons, that is. But the periodicity, identical to within an hour. Interesting. Had they been that dependent on natural sunlight? Come to think of it, yes, solar distances were very similar. And they were all Sol-type stars.
She turned her attention to her parents' latest papers, letting the EsKay discoveries stew in the back of her mind. Pota and Braddon were the Schliemanns of modern archeology, but it wasn't the EsKays that brought them fame, at least, not directly. After Tia's illness, they couldn't bring themselves to return to their old dig, or even the EsKay project, and for once, the Institute committees acted like something other than AIs with chips instead of hearts. Pota and Braddon were reassigned to a normal atmosphere water-world of high volcanic activity and thousands of tiny islands with a good population of nomadic sentients, something as utterly unlike the EsKay planets as possible. And it had been there that they made their discovery. Tracing the legends of the natives, of a king who first defied the gods and then challenged them, they replicated Schliemann's famous discovery of ancient Troy, uncovering an entire city buried by a volcanic eruption. Perfectly preserved for all time. For this world and these people, it was the equivalent of an Atlantis and Pompeii combined, for the city was of Bronze Age technology while the latter-day sentients were still struggling along with flint, obsidian, and shell, living in villages of no more than two hundred. While the natives of the present day were amphibious, leaning towards the aquatic side, these ancients were almost entirely creatures of dry land.
The discovery made Pota and Braddon's reputation; there was more than enough there to keep fifty archeologists busy for a hundred years. Ta'hianna became their life-project, and they rarely left the site anymore. They even established a permanent residence aboard a kind of glorified houseboat.
Tia enjoyed reading their papers, and the private speculations they had brought her, with some findings that weren't in the papers yet, but the Ta'hianna project simply didn't give her the thrill of mystery that the EsKays did.
And, there was one other thing. Years of analyzing every little nuance of those dreadful weeks had made her decide that what had happened to her could just as easily happen to some other unwitting archeologist Or even, another child.
Only finding the homeworld of the EsKays would give the Institute and Central World's Medical the information they needed to prevent another tragedy like Tia's.
If Tia had anything at all to say about it, that would never happen again. The next person infected might not be so lucky. The next person, if an adult, or even a child unfortunate enough to be less flexible and less intelligent than she had been, would likely have no choice but to spend the remainder of a fairly miserable life in a Moto-Chair and a room.
"XH One-Oh-Three-Three, your next set of brawn candidates is ready," CenCom said, interrupting her brooding thoughts. "You are going to pick one of these, aren't you?" the operator added wearily.
"I don't know yet," she replied, levelly. "I haven't interviewed them." She had rejected the first set of six entirely. CenCom obviously thought she was being a prima donna. She simply thought she was being appropriately careful. After all, since she was officially assigned to A and E with special assignment to the Institute, she had gotten precisely what she expected, a ship without Singularity Drive. Those were top-of-the-line, expensive, and not the sort of thing that the Institute could afford to hire. So, like Moira, she would be spending a lot of time in transit. Unlike Moira, she did not intend to find herself bouncing brawns so often that her buy-out had doubled because of the fines.
Spending a lot of time in transit meant a lot of time with only her brawn for company. She wanted someone who was bright, first of all. At least as bright as Tomas and Charlie. She wanted someone who would be willing to add her little crusade to the standard agenda and give it equal weight with what they had officially been assigned. She rather thought she would like to have a male, although she hadn't rejected any of the brawns just because they were female.
Most of all, she wanted someone who would like her; someone who would be a real partner in every sense. Someone who would willingly spend time with her when he could be doing other things; a friend, like Kenny and Anna, Moira and Lars.
And someone with some personality. Two of the last batch, both females, had exhibited all the personality of a cube of tofu.
That might do for another ship, another brain that didn't want to be bothered with softpersons outside of duty, but she wanted someone she could talk to! After all, she had been a softperson once.
"Who's first?" she asked CenCom, lowering her lift so that he, or she, could come aboard without having to climb the stairs.
"That'll be Donning Chang y Narhan," CenCom replied after a moment. "Really high marks in the Academy."
She scanned the databurst as Donning crossed the tarmac to the launch pad; he'd gotten high marks all right, though not stellar. Much like her; in the top tenth of the class, but not the top one percent. Very handsome, if the holo was to be believed; wavy blond hair, bright blue eyes, sculptured face with holo-star looks, sculptured body, too. But Tia was wary of good looks by now. Two of the first lot had been gorgeous; one had been one of the blocks of tofu, with nothing between the ears but what the Academy had put there, and the other had only wanted to talk about himself.
Movement outside alerted her to Donnings arrival; to her annoyance, he operated the lift manually instead of letting her handle it.
To her further annoyance, he treated her like some kind of superior AI; he was obviously annoyed with having to go through an interview in the first place and wanted to be elsewhere.
"Donning Chang y Narhan, reporting," he said in a bored tone of voice. "As ordered." He proceeded to rattle off everything that had been in the short file, as if she couldn't access it herself. He did not sit down. He paid no attention to Ted.
"Have you any questions?" he asked, making it sound as if questions would only mean that she had not been paying attention.
"Only a few," she replied. "What is your favorite composer? Do you play chess?"
He answered her questions curtly, as if they were so completely irrelevant that he couldn't believe she was asking them.
She obliged him by suggesting that he could leave after only a handful of questions; he took it with bad grace and left in a hurry, an aroma of scorched ego in his wake.
"Garrison Lebrel," CenCom said, as Donning vacated the lift.
Well, Garrison was possible. Good academic marks, not as high as Donning's but not bad. Interest in archeology... she perked up when she saw what he was interested in. Nonhumans, especially presumed extinct space-going races, including the EsKays!
Garrison let her bring him in and proved to be talkative, if not precisely congenial. He was very intense.