Saltation (41 page)

"In fact, a secure sample: what we have now of your Win Ton is contaminated; his blood and his cells carry within them the very things of which we need to cure him. The Win Ton you saw in the viewport of the machine, that Win Ton, the biologic system, has been altered to hide what is new among what is old, to make all of him somewhat other than the Win Ton you knew previously."

Theo shuddered, wondering, saw
data confirmed
go past as she considered—

"Clones, people clones, aren't legal, are they?"

He waved his hand with no meaning other than frustration, walking a few steps away and back as he thought.

"Fashion," he said finally. "It is a matter of fashion to make these rules. Cloning has been legal, it has been illegal. Good people have died a final death because they might not be cloned, my relatives among them—and for that matter, yours. Progress has been held back until the point that these Liaden fools Win Ton has been tangled with can threaten everything out of ignorance!"

"The Scouts?"

He sat suddenly, anger leached into an earnest and almost beseeching tone.

"The dissidents, the Department of the Interior. The fools who have collected good and bad Old Tech without discrimination and use it without understanding. The Scouts, the old Scouts, made it easy for them by putting these devices in
safe places
where they thought no one would find them, not knowing that technology cannot be suppressed over time. Banned, perhaps, outlawed certainly, but that's a passing thing waiting for the right person or group to write new rules.

"What may cure your Win Ton is what the Scouts are afraid of.
Bechimo
has a med unit that far surpasses even the unit on this ship, upon which both Dulsey and I depend. More!
Bechimo
certified Win Ton yo'Vala as copilot. It holds a sample—a secure sample—enough to rebuild him completely, properly, and without contamination."

Theo took a breath.

"You believe in this
Bechimo
then? It isn't just a coping—an artifact of his wanting to survive?"

Uncle leaned forward, his old-young face earnest.

"Please, listen and hear, Theo Waitley. The keys, both of them together, are Old Technology,
good
technology, and they speak to some of the devices in this ship which are also Old Technology.
Bechimo
is the next step; it was a hybrid built of the Old Tech that was fading of age and very advanced current tech of its time. And that is its danger to the Scouts, and to these dissidents, that what we built really was, and is, better than what they have and treasure."

Uncle's hands tussled with words or ideas she couldn't read.

"
We
?" she ventured, at last.

He sighed, gently.

"Call it
we
, if you like, Pilot. I believe in the
Bechimo
because I stood on her deck as she was being finished, so I know she exists. We can discuss the philosophy of these things called
existence
and
self
over a drink sometime, or a pot of tea, if you like. In the meantime, there is an issue of time, on several accounts.

"Win Ton yo'Vala's prognosis if I turn him back to the Scouts is not good: perhaps two hundred or three hundred Standard days, maybe four hundred if they are content to allow him to stay in the machine until he dies, useless and helpless, inside a cocoon. My machine—well, the machine calculates that at the current rate Win Ton will have a series of dozens of good days, and then of tens, and then of fours or threes, all interspersed with more and longer time within the med unit. With good food, diet, exercise, care, he may well have a thousand days or more of interrupted, painful survival.

"If we can get him to
Bechimo
, the ship should be able to restore him. It may well improve him. Then he may have centuries, as you should."

Theo bit her lip.

"Win Ton said
Bechimo
was looking for me."

"Yes, that's true. And with both of you together here it may well find you—and quickly! Which we can by no means allow!"

"Whyever not? If Win Ton needs the ship, then let it come here. I'll open it, we'll get him into this super-rated autodoc, and—"

"Think, Pilot. What happens here or anywhere public when a self-controlled ship comes to port demanding a space, or just taking a space? If someone warns it away, and it assumes you, or Win Ton, is in danger, it may attack—surely if someone tries to board it without your permission, it will repel boarders again!" He tapped the table for emphasis. "If you do not know this, know it now.
Bechimo
is self-aware. It is also ignorant, having been reft of an association which would have taught manners and something of human interaction."

"Win Ton said it was an AI," she admitted, and sighed. Uncle was right. Better to let the ship find her in . . . less crowded conditions.

"How will I know it?" she asked. "
Bechimo
."

"We can provide a matching program," Uncle said, and reached further, to tap the contract at her elbow.

"What I want you to do, Theo Waitley, is to accept my contract. There is a ship in orbit, an old ship but serviceable and proud. The port records are open to you ahead of time and you may check it thoroughly. It is built on an old Terran commissioner's ship plan, and is mostly standard, aside it has had several power upgrades. Accept the contract, and go.
Bechimo
will find you, I make no doubt. Be canny and choose your time and location. Once you have it in hand, then the choice of what you will do is, as every choice a pilot makes, your own."

He paused, regarded his hand a moment, then looked at Theo with no sign of anything but seriousness.

"In the meantime, it is best, I believe, for all of us, that you accept my contract."

Theo looked down at the contract, the phrase
Solcintra, Liad
coming into sharp focus. Clan Korval was based in Solcintra, Liad, as she knew from the news reports. Delm Korval—who was delm to pilotkind, wasn't that what Kara had said? Her father, Win Ton—pilots both. Would it be possible—?

And what could it hurt, she thought suddenly, to ask? Neither Father's disappearance nor Win Ton's circumstance was something that Sam Tim could solve on his own!

"I'll do it," she said.

Uncle inclined his head, and offered her a pen.

"Your signature, please." He produced a pouch from somewhere, and dumped its contents on the table before her: five cantra pieces, a ship's key, and what looked like a clay game piece.

"The ship I wish you to pilot is
Arin's Toss
, Pilot. Dulsey, please bring a screen, so that the pilot may review the records."

Theo looked at the small fortune sitting beside her, idly reaching out and touching the mint-fresh coins with the stern face on it, and then the key . . . and then the clay piece, which felt oddly fuzzy for something so hard, which felt comforting, the way the key round her neck had felt when she'd looked at Win Ton, who would be her copilot if he could . . . 

Now that she had decided, now that all of her problems seemed to be pointing in the same direction, she wanted to lift, to fly, to be
doing something
.

She stood.

"Just a moment, Pilot; Dulsey will be here—"

"That's fine," she interrupted. "If the ship will fly, I'll fly it."

She picked up the game piece, and flipped it. It snugged into her hand like a norbear.

"The usual rules apply," she said. "Let's go."

The Book of Ships
worknet description of
Arin's Toss,
out of Bluestone, Waymart, called it

an excellent example of the early trade-merge ship, with the courier-weight vessel built on Terran proportions, denominated and calibrated with Terran mensuration, and reminiscent of the family-vessel forbears it descended from. The ship has been surveyed as recently as Standard Year 1389, when its single classic Class Three mount point was replaced with a more modern Class Two mount during refitting that included installation of a dual core drive to replace what was claimed to be an original Terran Sentry-Overbrook.

Reading about it, though, was nothing like being there. Theo had in hand already the hard-copy printout and three reader versions of the ship's details, down to replacement part numbers, lists of shops that had worked on it in the last century, and the promised pinbeam info as well.

They'd toured the ship first, inspecting it externally on the way in as Dulsey piloted the minishuttle belonging to Crystal Energy Consultants.

For the initial runthrough, Theo sat second seat, Dulsey demonstrating the few nonstandard board-set items the antique retained with the ship quiet. Some of the surfaces were polished metal, some were clearly refits, but the entirety made the ships she trained on at the academy look old and grubby, and
Primadonna
just a little . . . dowdy.

Theo frowned, the memory of her last visit to
Primadonna
was still uncomfortable. Rig had taken her comm, her key and her news of a ship with a wide grin, and the advice to "fly her like she's part of you, Pilot Theo, because that's what she'll be, so soon it'll make your head spin!"

Mayko . . . had not been pleased. She demanded to know who had hired her, and how she felt, after Hugglelans had taken her aboard and trained her, to be signing with another company. Until Rig told her to put it in a can, that was, and Theo was left to pack in peace.

Arin's Toss
, though— They did a full run to Jump sequence with the board on neutral and Theo sitting second; then brought it down to quiet again. Theo took over, reset the board to zero and did the entire sequence again, adjusting toggle strengths and seating and light angles and straps to things that would be comfortable to her.

The intro time flew by; and on the morrow Theo would—

GAWGAWGAW.

Theo snatched for the comm—but it wasn't lit! She looked to Dulsey, who pointed.

Right, she thought. Pinbeam.

"Test message?"

Dulsey's hands were eloquent:
Live message get.

Theo signed
accept
and pressed the read now button, glad to see open text in Terran.

++Request/require immediate shipment pallet fifteen++new local conditions++arrive shields up++doubled terms arrive on-before Day 201 Standard 1393++haste++purple44+arrival Day 203 Standard 1393/later unacceptable++listening++

Theo glanced to the other pilot, surprised to see reaction on that normally serene face. Dulsey brought the second board live just in time to catch an incoming comm call which she flashed to the open speaker. Uncle's voice was clear.

"Hello,
Arin's Toss
. We'll have to rendezvous for a transfer; are systems good there?"

Dulsey looked to Theo, answered, "We have done first sequencing and introduction. There should be a dozen more hours or longer—"

"You can do the math; we are attempting a very finite deadline on a unique item."

"Waitley, can you get the
Toss
to—that would be Solcintra, Liad, planetside port by darkest night, day two-oh-one, if we can get
Toss
loaded?"

For a moment Theo flashed on stuffing the Slipper on the plateau; her hands running the board for fine coordinates.

"There's some leeway," Uncle continued. "Darkest quarter of the morning before dawn is client preference."

"Yes," Theo said, absolutely certain. "Yes, if the ship's up to spec and we can load within the next two orbits, I can make delivery. If there's food on board. But it'll have to be five Jumps."

There was a pause and Uncle's voice came through with a hint of something besides calm control.

"I'm bribing the Tower now and will lift soonest. Get clear of the station and intercept. Dulsey, you'll play tug."

"Waitley, I don't think there's any coffee on board. You'll have to do with whatever tea is in the stasis tins."

Theo looked to Dulsey. Shrugged. Replied:

"I'll manage."

In the middle of the third Jump—the longest one—Theo broke open the second stasis tin, not because she was out of tea in the first tin, but because she'd never had Supa Oong Dark before and had been told it was the best tea in the universe . . . from someone who'd lived on the planet where it was grown.

She could use something right now, all things considered, because she'd fudged her figures slightly and the recalculations were showing that she'd need a really good run-in from Jump if she was to make the schedule. That the
Toss
was equal to it, she had no doubt, having already developed a deep respect for the abilities and heart of her vessel. That the
pilot
was equal—

"Well," she said, "you'll just have to be."

She laughed, and wondered if this was why Tranza had taken up singing: to avoid talking to himself.

Theory is that any single Jump is physiologically neutral. Practice said that a single Jump was physiologically neutral. Timing was everything, after all, and there needed, for some reason, to be some time between the end of one Jump and the start of the next else . . . else the body was not entirely recovered from the experience. Time being measured in heartbeats or orbits or—

Third Jump ended, and
Arin's Toss
was real again, really here, really able to be seen. Theo checked the prefed coordinates, the destination coordinates, caught the gross arrival coords, compared them, corrected them, checked herself twice, had the
Toss
check itself. Satisfied, she pressed the go-button, throwing her ship into the fourth Jump—and reached for some tea.

Jump glare faded and she'd recalled the rules: she arrived with shields up and all channels open, and with the understanding that purple44 specified a night landing and she checked local time, throwing herself into the First Seat with a will and watching the time count down toward dawn someplace she'd never been.

Coming in at close to two gravity acceleration was tiring, but not as bad as missing the deadline.