Mosaic of Air E-Book

Cherry Potts

• Herausgeber: Arachne Press
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Seitenzahl: 330

Beschreibung

Delving into lecturing spiders, Helen of Troy, seaside libraries, computers that fall in love, murder and memory; but most of all humour, and a delight in all that women can be.Praise for the first edition:Cherry Potts writes with economy, punch, panache. - Ellen GalfordDefinitely about women in space, not the usual glossy tomboys of standard sf. - Gwyneth JonesDelightful … both a hilarious spoof of one-man-and-his computer myths such as 2001, a Space Odyssey; and a reflection on the limits of love and power. - Zoë Fairbairns

Leseprobe

MOSAIC OF AIR

Short Stories

Cherry Potts

CONTENTS

Foreword

Mosaic Of Air

Second Glance

Arachnë’s Daughters

Winter Festival

Trying To Tell You…

The Ballad Of Polly And Ann

Exile

The Bone Box

Member Of The Family

Ladies Pleasure

Holiday Romance

Rowan’s Version

Baby Pink/Electric Blue

Behind The Mask

Penelope Is No Longer Waiting

Reason To Believe

Thank you list

Some of the people who listened to some of the stories half finished, or not even started, and in the process helped them get finished, even if they didn’t always know that was what they were doing:

Alix Adams, Rudi André, Joyce Cunningham, Tash Fairbanks, Kate Hambrook, Kath Howells, Rosemary Manning, Morph, Ghillian Potts, Debs Trethewey, Lis Whitelaw, Jude Winter.

Thanks also to Muireann Grealy for her proofreading.

This book is for Alix: she knows why.

FOREWORD

Mosaic of Air was originally published twenty years ago, and some of these sixteen short stories were written as much as ten years before that. They reflect and explore Lesbian life in the 1980s through myth, history, fantasy and science fiction. They reflect my own concerns of the time, which involved a certain amount of marching, campaigning and metaphorical shouting from rooftops. We’ve come a long way since then, but happily myth and history don’t age, and to my delight, neither does my science fiction.

I did wonder whether the concerns and lifestyles depicted in the contemporary stories might have dated, and sometimes I think that I would write these stories differently now, and then I think, would I? Yes, the world has changed - for example, Nina (Baby Pink/Electric Blue) would not have been frantic to find a phone box, these days she’d have a mobile. Many of the scenarios played out by characters in the contemporary stories wouldn’t happen in the same way, at least not in much of the western world. Alice’s enraged cry of ‘He couldn’t very well marry Philip, could he?’ (Reason to Believe), is redundant in the UK in 2013; but there are plenty of places in the world where Lesbian and Gay lives are still lived in secret and fear, where these stories would still happen, where standing up for yourself as these characters do could lead to social ostracism, arrest and even death. Women like Rowan still tidy away evidence of their life (Rowan’s Version), and the un-named protagonist of Second Glance is still cautiously searching for clues before speaking to the woman in the bar. Sadly these stories have not dated as thoroughly as I might have hoped. That makes it sound as though these stories are full of doom and gloom, which they emphatically are not. My intention when I wrote them was to explore everything a woman, especially a Lesbian, could be; to test the premise of the Alix Dobkin song, Any Woman Can Be A Lesbian, with the passion and humour I found amongst my Lesbian friends and colleagues, and fellow shouters-from-rooftops.

Cherry Potts July 2013

MOSAIC OF AIR

Rhani had finished her work. It was the culmination of a project, the birth of her brainchild. It was the realisation of a lifetime of dreaming and scheming, of five years intense research and hard work. It was also a credit spinner once the trial run was over. There would probably be another doctorate, perhaps a prestigious job at a research station to go with it.

Rhani delighted in her creation. She wanted to show it off, she wanted to keep it to herself. She hugged her delight to her, feeling that she needed nothing more than this perfection of her intellect and skill. She did not need food or drink, and she most certainly did not need Paul. He wanted to be part of her success, but she would not let him. He was not responsible for it. He had even tried to prevent her from spending time on her work. She thought about him with anger in her heart, implacable in her resentment. She was not about to forgive him. Him and his demands, his wanting children before she was too old. This was her child.

For Paul, Rhani’s ‘child’ was a rival.

For the Government it was prestige, and a scientific coup.

For Wilson Avery, it was a career boost, and an honour.

For Cal, it was an escape route.

Rhani’s child was a computer, capable of piloting the most sophisticated new ships, and quite different from any computer that had ever been created before.

*

Cal had, due to her inability to stick to the rules, lost her pilot’s licence at just the wrong time. She was a smuggler: she would carry anything illicit from anywhere to anywhere, unfortunately, just when she most needed a clean record, she got caught.

Which was why Wilson Avery was piloting the new ship, not Calista Jerrard.

Rhani had asked for Cal originally, because she was famous, because she was so clearly the best. Then she got busted, shipping political dissidents off their home planet without asking too closely about their exit and entry papers.

If Rhani had ever met Cal she would have despised her lack of education, and she would certainly have considered her business strategies to be little short of criminal.

If Cal had ever met Rhani, she would have thought her an uptight traditionalist.

They would both have been right. They would have hated one another. But they never met. Which is why it happened the way it did.

Part of Rhani’s research had been to interview as many deep space pilots as she could find. She had read the profiles kept on them by the authorities, but that wasn’t enough. She wanted to know what they most needed from their computers. She had had to keep quiet about some of the responses, and even about some of the things she eventually programmed into her child. She didn’t want to frighten her government investors. Cal had not been among those she interviewed, owing to being on a particularly long haul at the time, the one that lost her her precious licence.

However, Wilson Avery had been interviewed. He had impressed Rhani. He was impressive, he worked hard at it. He was also the best pilot available when Cal fell out of the frame.

The trials were supposed to be top secret, and Cal should not have known anything about it. But Cal had space in her blood in almost equal levels with alcohol; she was addicted to the songs of the stars, the silence of the voids between. She couldn’t leave it alone. The loss of her licence was the worst thing to have happened to her. She stuck to the pilots’ bar like a leech, breathing the atmosphere, drinking the liquor, talking the jargon, longing for the dark outside.

And listening.

So she knew that the prototype computer was finished, knew which company had won the tender for the ship, and when Astarte was complete, she heard about it. Later she heard about the medicals and interviews the top guns were getting. She drank even more, trying to dull her frustration. Everyone knew they wouldn’t have had to bother with any other pilot if she had still fiown her licence. Some of the other pilots doubted she’d have passed the medical. No one suggested that to Calista Jerrard. Cal knew how to use a sonic knife to the disadvantage of anyone stupid enough to look for trouble with her.

And of course Cal knew when Avery was finally chosen. And she knew what the cargo was, even before Avery did. Cal gave up drinking for two whole days.

The cargo was another computer. A huge archive databank for a recently set up colony. The journey was a good long one. Cal craved the dark, the silence, the weightlessness … the aloneness. And she craved those computers. Her education might be lacking, but Cal had an instinct for computers, for ships, for space. She was a natural with them all. She understood them. She wanted that assignment.

And there was absolutely no way she was going to get it.

Cal reckoned that on a long trip like that she could learn both computers inside out, maybe even tap into the archive and get some culture.

Cal wanted to slice Wilson Avery’s smug grin off his face with her sonic knife. But Cal could be subtle when she wanted. And she wanted bad. Bad enough to try anything.

So she was working against time, trailing Avery everywhere he went. Watching his drinking companions, his women. Planning one hell of a heist. She lived on the excitement of planning. Stopped drinking. Stopped eating, stopped sleeping. One of her ex-friends, she only had ex-friends, observed that she must be in love. Not to Cal. No one could quite believe it.

If Rhani had had any idea what was being planned, she would have had Cal assassinated. Unfortunately she didn’t know, and nor did Wilson Avery.

Cal carried a voice encoder with her everywhere, taping everything Avery said. She needed his voiceprint to get through the security. But she also needed to know what the passwords were. And the only way to find that out was to ask him. And the only way to ask him was to get him alone and drug him. And the only way to do that – but Cal was desperate determined.

So if Wilson Avery was surprised when the short dark woman sat beside him at the bar and shamelessly propositioned him, he didn’t let on. Cal had noticed he didn’t take much time to get to know the women who slept with him, and that there were plenty of them. Of course, if Avery had been less drunk, he might have recognised her. But Cal had been careful. Dyed and curled her hair, painted her face, worn a long diaphanous skirt. Even her best ex-friends would have passed her by without a hint of recognition. Anyway, that was what her research told her Avery liked, and couldn’t be much further from how she usually looked.

In the unCal-like handbag she carried her voice encoder, sonic knife and an assortment of drugs, all illegal and of varying degrees of riskiness. She was almost embarrassed at how easy it was, but then she knew the high that comes before a really good contract, and Avery was all set to go first thing in the morning. Or that’s what he thought. A few more drinks, and they were heading back to Avery’s rooms.

Then a few more drinks. Cal’s head was beginning to buzz. She ought to have eaten first. She spiked Avery’s drink none too carefully, and hoped the drug would work fast.

It didn’t.

Cal found herself having to go through with Avery’s intentions instead of her own, found herself being dragged onto the bed. Despite her irritation – she had hoped to avoid this after all – she couldn’t help laughing at his attempts to find a way through all the layers of the skirt.

Still she had more drugs – tipping the pin of the brooch that held the scarf wound into her hair. She contrived to scratch him with it, careless of the effect of the mixing of drugs.

Avery’s drug/alcohol induced enthusiasm for Cal was overwhelming. He was determined to have her, and thoroughly. He was intoxicated by her; it was a hell of an experience.

Cal put up with it. She was no way going to pretend she was enjoying it. Sooner or later he would be under the drugs and then –

It was later. Cal struggled out from under him and ran for her voice encoder. Her head was unexpectedly spinning from too much drink. She wondered briefly whether Avery had been trying to drug her too. She dismissed the thought. Probably she was just light-headed from success. She ran through all her questions as fast as she could, recording Avery’s responses to passwords and codes before his voice started to slur and mess up her recordings. She took fingerprints in resin. She stole his new uniform, his passes, his licence. She liked the feel of that in her hand.

She checked his weight and height, analysed the colour of his hair.

She didn’t like the colour his face was going. She coded a medical alert into the door on her way past, and set it to delay long enough for her to get out of the area. Then, cursing herself for being soft, cancelled it. If Avery ended up in hospital before she was on Astarte, she would be cooked.

The next few hours were filled with checking the recordings, redying her hair and cutting it, padding out the uniform, building up her boots, making temporary fingerprints. She wasn’t too sure how many checks there would be.

Of course she would look nothing like Avery close up, but she wasn’t planning on getting close up.

And she didn’t.

The first anyone knew about it was when she told them.

Safely out of orbit, Cal disabled the automatic communications system. She wasn’t planning on anyone talking to the computer without her knowing about it. She activated the voice encoder and told the computer what she wanted it to do. And it did it.

Cal collapsed with relief. It worked. Somehow she had expected this state of the art computer to have a more sophisticated security system. But then, it did.

Rhani had built in a private channel between herself and the computer that did not rely on the automatic communication channel and would work under any circumstances, short of destruction.

So she knew that her computer had been hijacked.

She was furious. She was also worried, and intrigued. She did not want to alert the authorities yet. She knew what they were like. They’d probably blow the whole ship up, and then where would all that work go? No, she would monitor what was really happening on the ship.

Rhani’s corruption from her straight-laced respectability was starting.

She went herself to Avery’s rooms. She found him unconscious and barely breathing. She called Paul on their private line. He was a doctor, and although she wasn’t sure he would co-operate, she didn’t want a med. team who would gossip, so that everyone would know it wasn’t Avery on the ship. Paul protested, but eventually agreed to treat Avery privately. He wasn’t particularly confident of a full recovery; it had been a particularly nasty combination of drugs.

Rhani was disappointed. Cal had asked nothing of the computer yet. She had simply keyed in the correct co-ordinates and gone to sleep. Not that Rhani knew that it was Cal. Maybe she suspected it.

Cal hadn’t planned any further than getting on to Astarte. She had every intention of delivering her cargo. The months of travel would be enough for her to take in the archive, or as much of it as she wanted. She didn’t aim to deprive the colonists. She would have to jettison the whole cargo hold to avoid coming into contact with them, but that would be a small sacrifice. She didn’t plan on being found out before she had to. The longer she appeared legitimate the better. And it would be a quicker run to unpatrolled space from the colony than virtually anywhere else. After that, there were places for pirates to refuel and restock, she’d manage.

Cal slept for more than twenty hours, and woke up starving. She reached automatically for the food dispenser and keyed in her requirements. The computer hesitated. The false fingerprints were fraying out, and it registered a doubt.

Cal woke up properly, and repeated her order using the voice encoder. The food arrived. She ate quickly, stripping the fingerprints from her fingers as she did so. She instructed the computer to recognise a new set of prints, and placed both hands against the computer’s sensor.

The computer sent a message to Rhani asking whether it should accept the new authority. Rhani agreed that it could, and took a copy of the fingerprints. She fed the prints into her own computer. She waited.

A face appeared on the screen. Short, rough, red hair framed a pointed and serious face. Beneath it, an identical set of fingerprints, and the name Calista Jerrard. The information continued, but Rhani was not particularly interested. What she was interested in, was that the best and most dangerous pilot known to several species was in charge of her computer. She wasn’t sure whether she was pleased or frightened. In a way it was quite a compliment that Calista Jerrard would go to all this effort to get at her computer – it would have been much easier to steal any other ship.

Once she recovered from the initial shock, Rhani worried whether anyone could have detected her accessing Cal’s records. She wondered whether she could risk delving deeper than the basic information that was already on her screen. She read it carefully. She needed to know more about Cal. She called up the list of other files available, most of which were restricted. Rhani thought very carefully about the risks, and decided she needed that information. Using every underhand trick she had ever learnt and then tried to forget, she hacked into the records, and made copies of everything. Some of them were fairly innocuous. Running through the details swiftly, she took in Cal’s lousy credit rating with a wince, and felt a little uncomfortable at being party to such intimate information.

She realised that she had already read one file, when she was checking pilot profiles to help decide who to hire for the Astarte run. She re-read it quickly. Cal’s record was impressive. Rhani smiled to herself, reading it, thinking what a pity it was that Cal had turned out to be a smuggler; she would rather have had her than Avery on this run. Well, she’d got her anyway.

Rhani cancelled the file, and went on to the one she was really interested in; the transcripts of the trial, following Cal’s importation of the illegal immigrants. Rhani supposed there were worse things to get caught with, like weapons. She found the transcript difficult to follow, but found a sound recording appended, which was better, although the voices distorted on her machine, which wasn’t designed for this sort of thing. She listened to Cal’s voice, explaining why she had taken on the refugees, as Cal called them. She made no claims to a political rationale, simply insisting that it made no difference to her why or where they wanted to go. Good credit was all she was interested in.

Listening to the recording, Rhani realised that Cal had not expected to lose her licence. She ran the reel back, over and over, listening to the sudden change in Cal’s voice, as she finally understood what her punishment was to be. Her soft, almost insolent tone and the drawl which she used to cover a slight hesitancy, disappeared. Cal’s voice became sharp with fear.

You can’t do that to me.

Rhani could imagine the change in stance that must have gone with that, she could understand the terror in Cal’s voice, and so perhaps, she told herself, she could understand why Cal had stolen Astarte. It didn’t comfort her much, she had a feeling Cal had nothing left to lose, and would not be careful with her beloved computer.

*

Fully awake and fed, Cal was investigating. She checked out the ship. She checked out the supplies, the cargo. She hesitated over the archive databank, but decided she needed to know the computer that was running her ship more urgently. She also needed to check in on the messages floating around the other ships out there, check whether she had been found out. She wondered if Avery was dead. She didn’t much care. She didn’t like him any.

Cal went back to the flight deck, checked the messages. Nothing. She sighed in relief. The computer picked up the slight noise, and flashed its ready light at her. She invited it, through her voice encoder to tell her how it worked. The computer obliged, in even tones, and with an explanatory visual display. Which kept her busy quite a while.

*

Avery regained consciousness, but was weak and confused. Didn’t know who had drugged him, some woman. Paul wondered if he meant Rhani. She had told him nothing about why she had wanted Avery kept quiet. It took Avery a few days before he realised he should be somewhere other than in Paul’s research clinic. Then he panicked.

Paul suggested that Rhani should talk to him. She dragged herself away from the computer reluctantly.

She was shocked at how ill Avery looked; she had not bothered to check on his progress. She explained what little she could of what had happened. Avery began to look worse. And then he started to cry. Rhani pulled Paul away from the bedside to ask exactly what Cal had given Avery. Paul told her. She was horrified. She began to worry about what would happen to her computer, her concern for Avery forgotten.

Avery surveyed his future. He would never be able to take a ship into space again. Apart from the fact that his reputation would be in shreds when this got out, his health would never fully recover. And he was in debt. Without his lucrative pilot’s salary, he was finished. Any wonder that he cried?

*

Cal, meantime, had tired of being instructed. She had slept and woken again several times. She had checked for pursuit, and then idled her way through the recreational facilities. They had clearly been tailor-made to suit Wilson Avery. Cal didn’t find they had much in common. She didn’t do drugs. Avery apparently had a wide-ranging taste in some extremely bizarre and illegal concoctions. No wonder he had taken so long to react to the drugs she had given him. At least he drank gin. She wondered how he had got the drugs into the perfectly normal dispensary unit. He must have had someone inside the company funding the ship fit it out for him. Actually, Rhani had seen to the drug supply. She had listened very carefully to what the pilots wanted.

It took Cal a while to get used to having a computer that talked to her. She liked it. It was cosy. She could almost forget it was a machine. She spent a lot of time talking to the computer. Computer thought it probably quite liked Cal. It wasn’t quite sure how liking was supposed to feel, but it was comfortable with her, they had an easy relationship. Computer relayed this to Rhani. Rhani wasn’t pleased. She was jealous of her relationship with her child. She was damned if Cal was going to hijack Computer’s affections as well as everything else.

It wasn’t until she had run through Avery’s entire collection of vids at top speed, that Cal decided to go down to the cargo deck and take a look at the archival unit she was transporting. She spent a while taking the packaging to pieces. Then she played with the controls. It looked easy to use. It would be fun to get at the information, a challenge, more fun than high speed porno vids, anyway. Still, she put it off for a few more days, savouring the anticipation, so that, when she finally returned to the cargo deck, she was almost shaking with excitement. She wanted to get into that information, she wanted to swim in words, the way she swam in the darkness of the starlight, drunk on the whispering of the planets. She was greedy for knowledge, but she was scared as well. Scared of finding out too much.

So she approached the cargo hold in much the same state of mind as she had approached her first ship, or perhaps her first lover. Anticipation, excitement, fear. Cal hesitated for only a second before temptation overcame her qualms. Here was a chance to really submerge herself in all the things she’d missed out on. The training she had received to qualify as a pilot had left so many areas of knowledge untouched, it was so specialised. Physics, engineering, mathematics. Ideally suited to what she planned to do now, she reminded herself. Cautiously she opened the access panel on the library. Because the shippers had not known who would be dealing with it at the destination, they had not voice-locked it. She relaxed a little. Perhaps it would be easy after all. She surveyed the coded lights. Yes it would be easy. All it needed was to be linked to a power source, and into the ship’s computer so that she could access the information. She checked the nearest input position for the computer. Not impossible.

She typed in the command on the voice encoder. Wilson Avery’s voice requested access to the input panel. Nothing happened. Rhani had, in a fit of pique, instructed the computer not to recognise the command voice. Cal cursed fluently. Computer relayed this to Rhani. Rhani laughed.

Cal decided not to be polite. She cut through the panel with her completely illegal sonic knife. Computer informed Rhani. Rhani stopped laughing.

Cal inspected the tamper repel circuits. She did not think there would be a problem. She wasn’t going to try to disable the computer, so it shouldn’t react. She pushed the library module into line with the input panel and started lining up the circuits. A soft humming came from the library as it began to receive power. Cal worked methodically and carefully. But she was not sufficiently careful, because she thought it would be easy.

It wasn’t. As she adjusted the last connector into position, the sonic knife, which she had thrust into the pocket of her vest, slipped out and fell between the library and the input panel. Without thinking, she leant to pick it up, and her hand severed the sonic links.

Computer triggered the tamper alarm. Cal tried to pull away, and in so doing activated the library. The machines interfaced, with Cal caught in the sonic network between them. The soft humming turned to a whine that grew higher and higher. Cal was surprised that it didn’t hurt more, but knew that she had to get it shut off somehow, that the pain would get worse.

She had always been told this was the worst possible thing that could happen to a computer engineer. But the fact remained that she couldn’t get her arm out of the mass of sonic waves. She twisted frantically to see if she could reach the knife, but it was just out of reach. She couldn’t stretch far enough to get her fingers to the input panel to shut it off. All she could reach was the library, which was busy loading its information into the ship’s computer, which wasn’t what she wanted. She hit the off switch, but nothing happened. She was beginning to feel dizzy and frightened. The noises spiralled in her head, and she could no longer see straight. Her arm was going numb and she was shaking. When she could bear it no longer, she gave in to the shaking in her limbs and passed out; falling through the sonic circuit, catching in it like an insect in a spider’s web.

Computer could scarcely contain the data that the library was pouring into her memory. She wished Someone would turn it off before it overloaded. She sent another distress call to Rhani, and then the pilot fell into the network.

It was like nothing Computer had ever received before, her circuits reeled under the impact, and her fail-safe triggered. The input panel shorted out. The pilot hit the floor.

Computer assimilated the data she had received and sent a damage report to Rhani.

Circuits: Minor short in cargo bay.

Structure: Some damage to panelling input point 07 cargo bay.

Memory: Intact.

Pilot: Unconscious. Bruising to left knee and shoulder, left cheekbone. Cut to left hand. Considerable sonic disruption to nerve structure whole of left arm. Estimate will regain consciousness within three minutes twenty-two seconds.

Rhani acknowledged the report. Computer readied the necessary equipment in the med. deck and waited for Cal to wake up. While she waited she reviewed the information she had been force-fed. She got a shock.

Along with the archive and culture package from the library, she had all Cal’s memories.

This had a pretty devastating effect on her programming. For starters, she didn’t tell Rhani what she had received. She gloated, she plaited her wiring in excitement, she wondered how the hell to use what she now knew. She started thinking in slang. She decided not to let on to Cal that she knew her inside out. Cal might find the real off switch and kill her.

*

Cal regained consciousness with an empty feeling in her head, the metallic taste of blood in her mouth and a soon to be empty feeling in her stomach. She vomited. Computer set the suction cleaner. Cal drew a difficult breath, and decided she wasn’t going to die. She seemed to be wedged between sheets of metal. She tried to get to her feet. Her left arm wouldn’t move. A voice from somewhere above her told her that she had fallen into a sonic web, and to move very slowly. The empty feeling went away and her brain flooded with distress like the howling of cubs who have lost their mother. Never one to restrain herself, Cal howled.

Damn sonics. Why in hell can’t they invent something safe to use?

Computer told her.

Cal damned her to hell for an infernal machine.

Computer reminded her that she could obtain painkillers from the dispensary.

Cal muttered about a slug of whisky.

Computer advised against it.

Cal made it to her feet, using the library to haul herself up. Her knee was bruised. Her head hurt, and her arm – Cal, of course, was left-handed. She prodded at her arm experimentally. Nothing. Completely useless. She looked for the sonic knife that had been her downfall. It was still on the floor. She left it there, not feeling able to bend to get it. She limped out of the cargo hold. At least the med. deck was close.

Three times the recommended dose of painkilling gas. That was better. In fact it was damn good. She was light-headed with relief. She tried to turn it off, but her arm still wouldn’t function. Awkwardly, she used her right hand. She suddenly realised that she had lost her voice encoder, and that the computer had been responding quite normally to her true voice. She hit the General Medical Check button and lay back under the scanner. Computer reviewed the damage to Cal’s battered body.

She was beginning to get her brain back in line. Stupid, Cal, that’s what. Only infants and novices are stupid enough to put their hands through sonic nets. She wondered how much damage she had done to the computer with her carelessness.

Computer finished her scan. Pretty much what she had expected, but there was something else. She triple checked, she swore. Rhani would not have recognised the expletive, it wasn’t in her vocabulary, or Computer’s programming. Still, Computer swore, and decided not to tell Cal that she had a condition that should have been impossible, and about which the med. deck could do nothing.

Cal was pregnant.

Computer set up the program to deal with Cal’s lacerations and bruises, and to try to stimulate the damaged nerves in her arm, although she thought the odds low on any increased function in the damaged limb. She informed Cal of this.

Cal swore.

She rubbed the arm uncertainly, disbelieving. She could feel the cloth against her right hand, but the inner fabric did not rasp against her skin, as it should. She tried to lift her arm. Instead, jolted by the flinching muscles in her shoulder it slipped away from her, falling against the sharp edge of the console. It should have hurt. Cal stared at the red weal across her wrist, willing it to hurt. Nothing. She had no feeling in the arm at all.

Cal swallowed the bleak, frightened feeling and asked for a status report. She listened to the cadences of the computer’s chosen voice, trying to diminish the dread, and found that the voice was hers. Cal smiled to herself, battening down the excitement that hammered around her veins. What else had changed? What had happened to the archive program? She asked for an index of archive material. After five minutes she stopped it. Cautiously she swung off the bunk, struggled out of her clothes and stood under the shower unit for as long as she could stand.

Getting undressed had been difficult. The idea of trying to get back into the clothes was too daunting. She lay on the bunk and rolled the covers about her. She shivered.

Computer turned up the heat, and flooded the cabin with soothing music. This was not in her program.

Cal muttered comforting thoughts to herself. That guy Nelson managed with only one arm, didn’t he?

Computer searched the archive data she’d so unexpectedly received.

She told Cal that Horatio Nelson had lost an eye as well, and always got seasick.

Cal laughed. Then she cried. She didn’t know any H. Nelson. She had meant an old spacer she met once in a bar. Still, she could learn, about all the Nelsons ever, if she felt like it; and how to cope with only one arm.

Computer turned off the music. It didn’t seem to be having the required effect. Computer told Cal dirty jokes until the painkillers doped her out.

Then Computer reported back to Rhani.

Rhani could not believe it. Cal pregnant? Deep space pilots were supposed to be made infertile by their constant exposure to the radiation of deep space. But then Cal had been planet-side for a long time. Rhani hadn’t thought Cal went in for sex with men, in fact she was sure of it. The pilot profile she had read when she was researching her computer program, and re-read four times since discovering who her pirate was, had said quite the opposite. That had attracted her strangely when she first read it. She had been infuriated when Cal had fallen out of the frame. Rhani had unconsciously skimmed that information on each of the re-reads, but now it was relevant, and totally useless.

Rhani shuddered to think what kind of monstrosity might be growing in Cal’s womb. Pregnant women were always advised against travelling deep space. It did terrible things to a foetus, made it abort. She had seen the pictures. There was no chance of its survival. They were never brought to term. The significance of the thought slapped Rhani between the eyes – Cal wouldn’t make planetfall in time to get medical assistance. Worse, one of the corners she had cut, diverting funds to the computer, had been the medical supplies. On a cargo run, only the absolute basics had been fitted. That didn’t include abortive drugs. She did some quick sums. If the foetus aborted fairly immediately Cal would probably manage. But if it didn’t, she was in trouble. Rhani struggled with the sick feeling as her own womb contracted in sympathetic fear, and guilt. No one was responsible for the missing drugs but herself.

Rhani did a check on Computer’s automatic systems; she might be needing them. Then she put through a call to Paul. She needed his professional advice. While she waited for him, she plotted out the possible colonies and allied planets where Cal might conceivably get help if she stayed on course. It wasn’t promising. There were only two possible sources of aid, and one of those was inhabited by a race that didn’t reproduce in human fashion. The other was a military installation on a much-disputed border. They would be very suspicious of any ship coming into their zone. All of which relied on Cal having the sense to seek help. Somehow Rhani didn’t think she would.

Paul’s long face looked even more serious than usual when she told him. He chewed his moustache and frowned ferociously, staring at his fingernails. Finally, he expelled his breath and suggested requesting an intercept.

Rhani paled. It would mean admitting there was something wrong, it would mean getting massively in debt to a salvage company. She also felt a vague loyalty to Cal; she ought to let her make her own decisions, die if she wanted to. But it was bad enough leaving her precious Computer in the hands of a crazy, she must be getting spaced. Was she seriously imagining she could leave it in the hands of a dead crazy?

*

Computer decided it was time to wake Cal from her stupor.

<Good morning Cal,> she said.

Cal started, confused. She had been travelling the sweep of a galaxy, lost in myriad unnamed colours. The computer not only spoke with her voice, it knew her name. Just what had she done? She tried to rub her eyes, but her arm would not move. She had done something pretty stupid, she reminded herself. She dressed with difficulty, supporting her left arm in her jacket, hand resting on her right shoulder. It felt like someone else’s hand, it made her uneasy. She tried to dismiss it. There were more important things to think about. She had more important things to do, like learning what this computer had become.

She settled herself into the command seat, tipping it back to lie almost flat, so that she could look up into the mass of the computer. She inspected it anew. The command station was virtually encased in the computer. She felt comforted by it, enclosed in the womb-like space. She flicked the screen on right-handed. It was awkward; the controls were placed to be used by the left hand. She would just have to cope. She wondered if the computer would respond to voice commands on all functions. She asked it. She found that for all functions, save those relating to the weapon bank and self-destruct, she need not use her hands. The weapons needed simultaneous voice/hand control to ensure they were not activated in error. This was usual, but most computers did not use much voice control. Cal reckoned Dr Rhani had taken risks. It was well known that pilots talk to themselves on long trips, what if the computer interpreted these ramblings as commands? She must be pretty confident of her machine.

*

Rhani was feeling less confident by the moment. Her initial shock at Computer’s revelation had not allowed her to take in the manner of its delivery. In her anxiety, Computer had not used her usual form of report; she had merely flashed her message at Rhani, brutally, bluntly.

<The damn woman’s pregnant.>

Now Rhani reviewed it. The damn woman’s pregnant? Was this her computer talking? It sounded more like Cal. Had Cal found her secret comm. channel? Did Cal know she was pregnant? Quickly, she keyed in her message.

<Does she know?>

She counted off the seconds, then the response came.

<No, I haven’t told her, and I won’t, unless she asks me outright.>

Rhani’s fingers trembled on the keyboard. Her computer withholding information from her pilot? It was unthinkable.

She decided to beggar herself. She was sending in a salvage intercept. An illicit one. There was something seriously wrong on Astarte and she had a responsibility to salvage what she could from the situation. But not with the knowledge of the authorities if she could help it. She had already had one earnest official enquiring after the tests, concerned that they could not monitor the messages passing between Astarte and Rhani. She had reassured him that the extreme security was necessary to foil any hijack attempts. Which was actually true, except that one pirate had found Astarte already. Rhani decided she needed to talk to Wilson Avery.