He left as soon as the last word was snapped out, and Nancia was grateful for that. Caleb was staring around the cabin with an expression she could not read. If he was going to be angry with her for going be- hind his back, she'd just as soon have it out in private.

"I... don't understand," he said slowly. "You aren't waiting to choose a new brawn? You're going to go out solo again?"

"Hardly that," Nancia told him. "I've had enough of solo voyages, thank you very much; I find that I much 96.

AnmMcCaffrey & Margaret Ba& prefer to travel with a partner."

"Then..."

"Didn't you hear the man? From now on I'm the CN-935. I've decided that Psych Central was right,"

Nancia said. It was a struggle to keep her voice projec- tions calm and even. "We make a very good team."

Caleb was still speechless, and Nancia felt her one fear approaching.

"If... if that's all right with you?"

"All right, all right, all rigktl" Caleb exploded. "The woman gives me back my life - and with the perfect brain partner-and she wants to know if it's all right? I - Nancia - oh, wait a minute, would you? There's something I've got to take care of before you restore external beam transmissions."

He hurried off to his cabin, presumably to erase the job application letter that had taken so long to create, and Nancia permitted herself a small coruscating dis- play of stars and comets across her three wide screens.

It was going to be all right.

More than all right. "Nancia," she repeated to her- self. "He finally called me Nancia."

CHAPTER SIX.

Angalia, Central Date 2750: Blaize Blaize Armontillado-Perez y Medoc stared in dis- belief at his new home as the exit port of the XN-935 slid shut behind him. The mesa top that had served Nancia as a landing field was the only level bit of solid ground in sight. Behind the mesa was a wall of crumb- ly, near-vertical rock that rose in jagged peaks to block out the morning sun. The long black shadows of the mountains fell across the mesa and down into a sea of oozing glop that looked like the Quagmire of Despair as displayed in the latest version of s.p.a.cED OUT. The only variation in the brownish sea was that at a few locations large, lazy bubbles rose from the glop and burst with a sulfurous stink.

At the very edge of the mesa, cantilevered precariously out over the Quagmire of Despair, was a gray plastifilm prefab storage facility. Bulging brown sacks stenciled with the initials of Planetary Technical Aid hung from hooks on one side of the shack, dan- gling right out over the sea of glop. On the side of the shanty nearest Blaize, the plastifilm roof had been ex- tended with some sort of woven fronds to create a sagging awning. Beneath this awning lounged an im- mensely fat man wearing only a pair of sweat-stained briefs.

Blaize sighed and picked up the nearest two pieces of his kit. Staggering slighdy under a gravity consider- ably higher than ship's norm, he made his way 98.towards the obese guardian of Angalia.

"PTA tech-trainee Armontillado-Perez y Medoc, sir," he introduced himself. Who is this guy? He's got to be one of the corydum miners. They're the only humans on An- gatia - except, of course...

"And the top of the morning to you, Sherry, me lad,"

- said the sweating man-mountain cordially. "Never was so glad to see anybody in m'life. Hope you enjoy the next five years here."

"Ah - PTA Grade Eleven Supervisor Harmon?"

Blaize hazarded. Except my new boss.

A richly alcoholic wheeze almost knocked him off his feet. "You see anybody else around here, kid? Who d'you think I am?"

"The corytium mine - "

"Dead. Defunct Abandoned. Kaput, all gone splash, stinko," Grade 11 Supervisor Harmon said with relish.

"Went bust. Owner sold the mine to me for a case of spirits before he pulled out."

"What went wrong?"

"Labor. Company couldn't keep miners here for love nor money. Not that they offered much love - even a corycium miner ain't desperate enough to try and get it on with a Loosie, heh, heh, heh." Another wave of alcohol-flavored breath washed over Blaize.

"Loosie?"

"h.o.m.osimlis Lucilla Angalii to you, m'boy. The veg- heads Lucilla Sharif discovered, d.a.m.n her soul, and reported as possibly intelligent on the FCF, double- d.a.m.n her, and for her sins we're stuck administering Planetary Technical Aid to a bunch of walking zuc- chini. All the company I've had since they closed the mine. And aHyou'U have for the next five years. Next PTA transport comes by here is taking me off-planet."

Harmon looked enviously at the sleek length of the XN-935, her tip now gleaming in the sun that peeked over the jagged mountains. "Nice perks you High99.

Families kids get, transport like that. I don't suppose you could persuade that brainship - "

"I doubt it," Blaize said.

Harmon chortled. "No, didn't much sound like it, way you come out yelling and screaming over your shoulder, with it dumping your luggage after you. You musta p.i.s.sed it off real handsome. No matter. Next PTA shipment oughta be along any day now. And when it comes, my new a.s.signment should be ready."

He stretched luxuriously, took a deep drink from the bottle beside him, and sighed with antic.i.p.ated content- ment. "Reckon I've earned myself a nice long tour of duty on Central, in a nice office tower with air con- ditioning and servos and no need to pay any b.l.o.o.d.y attention to b.l.o.o.d.y nature unless you happen to feel like looking out the window. Sit down, Madeira-y- Perez, and don't look so miserable. Do your five years and maybe they'll post you back in civilization. You're in luck, coming when you did."

"I am?" The sun was over the mountain by now, and it was hot on the mesa. Blaize pulled his largest grip under the shade of the awning and sat down on it "Sure. Today's feeding time at the zoo. Put on a real show for you, the Loosies will." Harmon waved again, this time as if beckoning the cliff that towered above them to come on down. Blaize stared in shock as crag- gy bits of mountain broke loose and trickled down to the mesa top, shambling like crazy puppets made of rocks and wire. Strange costumes - no, they were naked; that was their skin he was looking at.

"Yaohoo! Feeding time! Whoeel" Harmon yodeled, simultaneously jerking the cord that ran along the side of the PTA prefab. One of the sacks overhanging the muddy basin opened and brownish-gray ration bricks spilled out in a torrent, piling up in the mud below the mesa, The Loosies scurried to the edge of the mesa and let themselves down into the muddy sea, fingers and toes 100.clinging to crevices in the rocks. The first ones down threw themselves on the ration bricks as if they were greeting a long-lost lover; the later arrivals piled on top of them, swinging uncoordinated limbs and wrig- gling to burrow into the muddy heap of rations.

Blaize felt a rumbling vibration coming up through the soles of his feet.

"Look out!" Harmon roared.

Blaize jumped and Harmon chuckled. "Sorry to startle you, kid. You wouldn't want to miss the other big show of Angalia." He pointed to the western horizon.

It seemed to be moving.

It was a wall of water. No, mud. No - Blaize strug- gled for the right word and could only find the one that had first occurred to him: glop.

The "Loosies" had ignored Harmon's shout as if they were deaf, but something - perhaps the rum- bling vibration that Blaize felt - alerted those still at the bottom of the quagmire. They swarmed up the sides of the mesa, clutching their ration bricks in teeth and fingers. The last one got out of the way just before the advancing tide of glop struck the mesa.

The whole desperate, squirming consumption of ration bricks had taken place in total silence. Now, less than three minutes later, it was over and the mesa was surrounded by a sucking, slimy tide of glop. As Blaize watched, the tide receded, sliding back down the sides of the mesa until the new mud melted into the same soggy configuration of puddles and bubbles that had greeted him on arrival.

"That was a small one," Harmon said with regret.

"Oh, well, there'll likely be some better ones before you go. Bound to be, in feet."

In response to Blaize's questions he explained, without much interest, that the erratic climatic pattern of Angalia produced a constantly moving band of101.

thundershowers in the mountains which surrounded this central basin. Whenever the storms stayed in the same place for a while, the rainfall built up into a flash flood which raced across the plain, picking up mud as it went, and sweeping away anything that might be foolish enough to remain in its path.

"Terraforrning," Blaize mused. "Dams to catch the rainfall and release it slowly..."

"Expensive, and who'd bother? Nothing here to repay the investment. Besides," Harmon explained, "it's fun. d.a.m.n sure ain't much else to watch out here!"

Blaize gathered that one of Harmon's amus.e.m.e.nts was trying to predict the times of the mud-floods so that he could feed the natives just before one, forcing them to scramble first for ration bricks and then to save themselves from the tide of mud.

"Ain't it the d.a.m.nedest thing?" he demanded as the rock-like natives climbed back to their mountain heights, some clutching a few ration bricks for later consumption, some still chewing the last mouthfuls of their haul. "You ever see anything like it?"

"Never," Blaize admitted. Are the - the Loosies starv- ing'? Is that why their skin hangs loose like that? Or is that their normal appearance ? And how does this fat creep get away tuith putting them through sitch a degrading performance1?

"I know what you're thinking, Port-Wine-y-Medoc,"

the fat man said, "but wait'll you've done six months out here, you'll forget all the PTA regs about respect- ing the natives' dignity and all that c.r.a.pola. d.a.m.ned Loosies don't have any dignity to respect, anyway.

They're a bunch of animals. Never developed agricul- ture -or clothing-or even language."

"Or lies," commented Blaize.

"What?" For a moment Harmon looked startled, then he chuckled and wheezed with amus.e.m.e.nt.

"Righto. No language, no lies - gotta say that for 102.

& them, anyway! But they're ootpeople, young Claret- Medoc. Waste of resources, this whole operation - some paperpusher's mistake. Only encourages the veg-heads to breed more little veggies. We oughta pull outa here and let 'em starve on their own, /ask me."

"Maybe they could be trained to work the mine,"

Blaize suggested.

Harmon snorted. "Yeah, sure. I did hear about some prisoners in olden times who amused themselves trying to train their pet rats to run errands. You could do that sooner'n you could teach a Loosie anything, kid. I tell you, there's just three amus.e.m.e.nts on An- galia: feediri time for the Loosies, drinkin' time for me, and playing computer games. And I've mapped every d.a.m.n level of the Maze of the Minotaur so many times I can't stand to look at it no more."

Blaize felt in his pocket The datahedron recording the wager wasn't the only item he'd copied from Nancia's computer. "Does your computer-"

"Yours now, Sake-ArmontUlado," Harmon inter- rupted with a cheerful belch. "PTA issue.**

"Does it have enough memory and display graphics to run s.p.a.cED OUT? Because," Blaize said, "I just hap- pen to have a copy of the latest version here.

Pre-release - it's not even on sale at Central yet" He winked at Harmon.

"Is that so!" Harmon oozed to his feet "C'mon in- side, Burgundy-Champagne. Pa.s.s the time in a li'l friendly game until my transport gets here.** He scratched his bare chest, squinting at Blaize with the rudiments of a thoughtful expression on his face.

"Have to name some stakes, of course. No fun playing for nothing."

"My sentiments exactly,'' Blaize agreed. "Lead the way.*1 Five days later, exactly as scheduled, the PTA transport touched down to deliver new supplies and to pick up Supervisor Grade 11 Harmon for the103.

months-long FTL journey to his new a.s.signment.

Blaize remained behind with the Loosies and his winnings: two partially depleted cases of Sapphire Ruin, Supervisor Grade 11 Harmon's hand-woven palm-frond sun hat, and the t.i.tle to an abandoned corycium mine.

Deneb Subs.p.a.ce, Central Date 2750: Nancia and Caleb "That," said Caleb as he and Nancia left Deneb s.p.a.cebase, "was one of our more satisfying a.s.signments."

"Out of a grand total of two?" Nancia teased him.

But she agreed. Their first scheduled run out of Central, delivering medical supplies to a newly settled planet, had been worthwhile but hardly challenging.

And they had both been apprehensive about this as- signment: transporting some semi-retired general, another High Families representative, into the middle of a particularly nasty conflict between Central Worlds settlers and Capellan traders. But General Micaya Questar-Benn had proved completely different from the spoilt High Families children Nancia had taken out to Vega subs.p.a.ce on her first a.s.signment. Short, competent, una.s.suming, the general had won Caleb's heart at once with her in-depth knowledge of Vega's complex history. She'd proceeded to spend much of the short run to Deneb subs.p.a.ce talking shop with Nancia; half the general's body parts and several major organs were cyborg replacements, and she was interested in the possibility of improving her liver functions with one of the newer metachip implants such as kept Nancia's physical body healthy within its sh.e.l.l. Nancia had never envisioned herself discussing something so personal with anybody, let alone a high- ranking army officer, but something about General Questar-Benn's una.s.suming manner made intimate 104.

Asms McCaffrey & talk unthreatening and easy.

Nanria wasn't too surprised to learn that before she and Caleb had even prepared for the return journey, General Questar-Benn had drawn human and Capellan antagonists into negotiations and worked out a settle- ment that would allow each side to feel they had "won."

"And here I thought we were warmongering, delivering somebody with authority to send in the heavy armored divisions!" Caleb went on.

Nancia chuckled. "The galaxy could do with a few more 'warmongers' like Micaya Questar-Benn. Ready for Singularity, partner? Central should have a new as- signment for us by now."

Bahati, Central Date 2751: Alpha Alpha bint Hezra-Fong stared down in distaste at the writhing body of her experimental subject. What had gone wrong? The molecular variations of Blissto which she'd been preparing should have rendered the patient calm and tractable. Instead he was contorting his limbs and moaning uncontrollably, trying to break the restraint straps on his stretcher.

Alpha tightened the straps until the patient stopped thrashing and pa.s.sed a medscanner over his forehead.

She frowned at the results. Instead of generating soothing hormones, Blissto.Rev.2 was invading and replicating itself within the man's nervous system like a cancer gone wild.

"d.a.m.n! I haven't got time for this," she muttered.

Quickly she considered her options. If she could keep the patient alive and in isolation for a few days, per- haps she would be able to find out what was causing this invasive replication and find a way to stop it. But if anybody questioned her work - The man's convulsions increased. One leg broke the reinforced restraint strap and kicked out wildly.105.

"Too dangerous," Alpha decided. She pressed a hypospray to the man's neck and watched his body sag back against the stretcher. His eyes rolled upwards and the thrashing stopped.

So did all other movement.

Alpha had papers prepared for just such an emergen- cy. Tlie clinic director was an old fool, too lazy to check her reports; n.o.body else would dare to question her.

Charity Patient B.342.iv would be listed as having died of heart feilure brought on by a preexisting medical condi- tion which the clinic had not had time to reverse.

The only trouble was, that made the third such death in the year since Alpha had begun testing her improved version of Blissto. Sooner or later, if she didn't get the drug dosage right, somebody was going to notice the string of identical sudden-death reports and ask questions.

Alpha seriously considered returning to ex- perimenting on rabbits. But rabbit cages stank, and taking care of the beasts was a lot of work, and there was even more probability that somebody would ques- tion her sudden interest in raising pets.

She'd just have to think up a few more excuses for sudden deaths on the charity wing. A little variation in the paperwork would help disguise these unfortunate accidents.

Procyon Subs.p.a.ce, Central Date 2751: Caleb and Nancia "This is boring,'1 Nancia complained as she watched workers on Szatmar II unload die cases of vaccine she and Caleb had transported there.

"It is important to see that children's vaccinations are kept up regularly," Caleb told her.

"Yes, but it's hardly an emergency. At least, it wouldn't have been one if PTA would keep its records up to date." A horrified bureaucrat had discovered 106.

&? Mwgore* Ball that some incompetent named Harmon, working out of PTA on Central Worlds, had forgotten to ship last year's supplies of vaccine to any PTA client planets in the Procyon subsystem. In consequence, Nancia and Caleb were getting an extended tour of that subsys- tem, delivering measles and whooping-cough vaccine to several dozen settlements on widely scattered planets. "I've got a good mind to speak to my sister about this idiot Harmon," Nantia grumbled. 'Jinevra would never tolerate such inefficiency in her own branch of PTA; maybe she can get Central to transfer Harmon to a spot where he can't do any harm."

"Nancia, you wouldn't seriously consider using your family connections for personal interest!"