He tried to keep calm, tried to assess his situation. What would they do? He wasnt sure. But he knew what they wouldnt do. They wouldnt let him leave the Beastship and become a colonists on a new planet. It didnt seem likely to him that theyd send him back to Earth. A stray phrase from the Conservancy lectures came back to him. Pity for the deformed and diseased swiftly devolves into a form of cruelty. Extending the lives of the unfit is not a worthwhile pursuit for Humanity. The strengthening of our species is. The lecture had been explaining the need for rigorous controls on breeding once the planets were reached, but he didnt doubt that the same policy would extend to him.
Raef gathered himself to this feet. For a few moments he felt about in the darkness for a rung, before his arm muscles cramped and he realized he couldnt rung any farther. He stood a moment longer, darkness and silence pressing him as heavily as the knowledge of his disease, the imperfection that would let them kill him.
Help me! He spoke it aloud to the darkness, hopelessly. God, help me!
What do you require?
It was either the voice of God, or the voice of Tug himself, the one that had dictated all their awakenings and sleepings all this long way. It didnt seem to Raef that it mattered which. It asked him what he needed as if it could grant it.
Sanctuary, he begged.
Sanctuary?
Theyll kill me if they find me. Because I have
I know. But you still want to live?
Yes.
It wont be much of a life.
It will be better than death.
Interesting. The voice sounded intrigued. This way.
The corridor lit dimly before him. He followed the light, glancing back once to see it fading behind him. It led him far, winding deeper and deeper into the ship, and finally to a womb chamber, where wombs hung slackly grey, waiting.
Enter one, said the voice. Youll be safe here.
Raef didnt hesitate, but crawled into a womb, discarding his paper gown on the way. He groped and found the umbilical cord, coupled it to the fitting still implanted in his belly. He curled himself for Waitsleep.
What will you have? the voice asked, muffled by the walls of the womb. Without the companionship of other Humans, without a hope of a home, with no future save what you have this minute? What will you have worth living for?
The only things Ive ever had, Raef muttered. My dreams.
He could feel his heart beating, beating too fast, dammit, Tug, dont you notice my heart is going too fast? The dreams merged, touching until he couldnt tell them from now, that curling into Waitsleep from this sinking away from the too-vivid dream memory. Finally, he escaped the old nightmare the only way he could, by retreating into a deeper dream.
Long John Silver stands on the deck of his ship, the wind is in his face. Above his head, the sails crack and the crew bustles up the lines to carry out his orders. For on this ship, he is no stowaway, but is the captain, and one word from him can set a lash to a mans back, or gift him an extra ration of grog.
1
I HATE THESE DAMN SCREENS.
Tug didnt reply to Johns complaint. Neither did Connie, but at least John had the satisfaction of seeing her hunch a little tighter into her own station, nervously aware of the captains frustration and displeasure. He glared at the bank of monitors. Runny images. Another one of the Conservancys negative improvements. He rubbed again at the biotrol strip that was supposed to stimulate the screens to greater brightness. Nothing happened.
Whats the matter with the monitor bank? he demanded, and when he got no reply, he raised his voice in sarcastic incredulity. Is it biodegrading right before my very eyes?
Still no answer. Connies solution to any problem was to shut up and make herself small until someone else handled it. This was the deckhands second ship-out on Evangeline, and John still hadnt figured out how to get her to react in a constructive way. In her own way, she was as frustrating to him as the dimming monitors. He didnt understand it. Her papers were good, her scores for her ratings exemplary. Even Johns personal sources had given good reports of her. Or had they? He frowned, remembering Andrews words.
Quiet. First Mate Andrew on the Beastship Trotter had characterized Connie when John had requested a very unauthorized personal opinion of Andrews former shipmate. Not unfriendly, but quiet. I didnt know her that well. But from what everyone says, shes supposed to be very bright. Very competent. I dont think youll be disappointed in her. I know you like your privacy, John. Well, so does she. Should work out well, you two hermits rattling around in a scow that size. You can come out of Waitsleep, grunt at each other, and go back in without bothering each other at all.
So John had hired her, more on Andrews word than on her high ratings on the standardized tests. And found her not competent or bright, but only quiet. Very quiet. And passive to the point where it was driving him crazy. Needling her only seemed to make the crewwoman more reclusive, and yet there were times he could not resist doing it, just for the sake of getting some kind of reaction from her. She seemed to have all the personality and social skills of an algae vat. Thanks a lot, Andrew. I owe you one.
As for Tugs silence, well, the Arthroplana was playing at protocol again. Speak when spoken to. John hated it, but gave in and addressed him by name. Tug. Can you boost the monitor screen from your side or something? Somethings got to be malfunctioning; nothing this fuzzy could have met standards. I dont remember the monitor images being this bad last time we used them. That, of course, had been a number of years and several Wakeups ago. Still, the ships equipment wasnt supposed to biodegrade that fast.
The picture improved minimally as Tug made whatever adjustments he could from his separate living quarters within Evangelines body. Tugs synthetic voice thrummed softly through the command chamber. My readings indicate that the picture is within the parameters for acceptable vision. It has, as you noted, biodegraded somewhat since our last use of the equipment. The bacterial action that triggers the luminors may be slowing. If you are so dissatisfied with it, I suggest you might have the unit recolonized while were docked at Delta. Still, according to all my references, the image is within safe and acceptable parameters.
Safe and acceptable parameters? Tug, dont try to tell me that this image is as good as the one we got on the old equipment that they made us turn in for this.
Tug considered a moment. While the image may not be as sharp nor as adjustable, the equipment is much more harmonious with the environment. All components are completely recyclable with a waste factor of less than point two percent.
Wonderful. We cant see a damn thing on the screen, but we can be content knowing that the whole thing can be remanufactured into something even less useful with a minimum of waste.
Tug either couldnt think of a reply or chose not to. John crossed his arms on his chest and settled back into his couch. Despite his resolutions, the true source of his frustration pushed itself to the front of his mind again. It had been the first message up on his screen when hed come out of Waitsleep. Norwich Shipping thanked John, Tug, crew, and the Evangeline herself for their years of service, but were regretful to inform him that such services were no longer required. References would be furnished, of course. Brief and to the point. And totally maddening in that John could think of no reason why they would want to terminate their contract with the Evangeline. She was the only Beastship around that was still unmodified from the old Lifeboat days. No one else had their cargo capacity. Theyd never missed a deadline or screwed up a delivery. It made no sense at all, and it promised to turn what should have been a relaxing shore time into a maze of negotiations as John hunted down new clients for the Evangeline. Dammit, it made no sense.
He wanted to stew on Norwich Shippings sudden refusal to renew their contract, but was distracted by one monitors image. It was a station relay of Evangeline approaching the dock. Not even the fuzziness of the degrading biologics could totally obscure the beauty of the Beast that powered his ship. He ignored the functional cell-meld structure of the gondola fastened to Evangeline; that was but the container that housed the Human crew and provided cargo space. It had no intrinsic beauty, only functional practicality. No, it was Evangeline herselfthe organic Beast portion of his Beastshipthat captivated him. He realized abruptly that he had been staring silently at the screen for several minutes. After all these years, she could still entrance him like that. He snorted at his own sentiment, and shifted his gaze to another monitor.
It showed him Delta Station. Hed grown up on Beta Station, which was identical to Delta and the other two dirty-tech stations that orbited Castor. It made for maximum efficiency in manufacturing components and maintaining the stations. Maximum boredom, too. He knew every seam and span in the construction of the stations from his days as a maintenance shuttle pilot. It had been thirty-seven years for the station dwellers since he had last been here, but it looked to him as if only his subjective three months had passed; if the Conservancy had made any changes in Delta, they werent readily apparent. Just looking at the unimaginative functionality of the station crumpled the moment of peace hed felt in watching Evangelines organic opulence and renewed his earlier discontentment. The exterior of the station mirrored too accurately the blandly efficient interior of the station, of all the stations, even of his own ship.
Well, in a short time hed be plunged into that grindingly efficient and correct place. It had been bad enough when all that meant was off-loading a cargo and picking up a new consignment. At least then hed been free to follow his own interests, which usually meant spending the bulk of his pay on information and entertainments for his library. But this time it meant work, and real work, lining up a new client for Evangelines services. Reflecting that this type of task was one of the major reasons a Human captain was required at all on Evangeline didnt cheer him. Tug was too fond of reminding him, You are the captain of the ship, John, but I control the Beast.
He glanced once more at the monitor that showed Evangelines approach. John fought it for an instant, then let his heart swell as it always did when confronted with the wonder of his ship. Dammit, she was his ship, just as much as Tugs. She was more than that, she was his world. Hed spent the vast majority of his many years within her, and that, as much as anything, made her his. And he was glad. The Beastship Evangeline moved as lightly as he imagined thistledown had in Terras winds. He sometimes thought that perhaps his ship looked like thistledown, on a cosmic scale. The immensity of the cell-meld-constructed gondola fastened to her body was negated to insignificance by the delicacy of her lacy sails and fans and the angel-hair finery of her lines and filaments. The precise angles and functionality of the gondola that hugged Evangelines lower body and provided quarters for her Human crew was like a rectangular scar in that forest of delicacy. John jockeyed the monitor controls and shifted to a camera view that didnt include the gondola. Now she was all Beast, all living creature moving herself easily toward the station. Evangeline was lifting and rotating her filaments and fans in the graceful lazing movement that all Beastships made, no matter what speed they were traveling at. Not for the first time, John stared at that seemingly idle shifting, at the play of the stations reflected lights on her translucent body, and wondered how the hell the Beasts moved through space so effortlessly. One hank of filaments moved suddenly and coordinatedly in what could have been a venting of gases, a steerage correction, or simply a stretching of tissue as Evangeline brought them closer to docking.
Tug, he said softly, staring at the screen. Tell her shes beautiful.
Tell whom, John?
He didnt lift his gaze. Evangeline. Tell her shes beautiful.
I cant do that, John. For one thing, she wouldnt understand it. For another, we have found that any kind of communication with Humans, however indirect, is most unsettling to a Beast. Your culture is still, unfortunately, much too disharmonious.
Telling her shes beautiful would upset her? Whats disharmonious about that?
Tug sighed audibly, purely for the benefit of the listening Humans. John was suddenly aware of how still Connie was, how tuned in she was to this old argument between Tug and him.
John, it is so simple. Think about it and even you will grasp it. Evangeline sees neither beauty nor ugliness, in herself or in anything else. She sees only things in their correct places, doing as they should. To speak of beauty to her would be to imply to her that this was a thing to strive for, somehow, at the expense of being harmonious with all around her. It would confuse her.
John was silent. Tug wasnt going to give Evangeline the message, was never going to let John have any kind of communication with the Beast that powered his ship. No, Tug kept it all for himself, and John often felt little more than an errand boy.
Sometimes, when he thought about it, it almost made him bitter. John Gen-93-Beta, captain of the Beastship Evangeline, sitting in his command lounge watching his ship rendezvous and dock with the station. And he didnt lift a finger to control or assist it in any way, didnt need to issue a single command, didnt even really understand how any of it was done. The fact that the entire Human populations of Castor and Pollux and all four dirty-tech stations shared his ignorance did nothing to abate his frustration with it. The poor quality of the screens image only rubbed his nose in it. It didnt matter what the Human captain saw, as long as the Arthroplana who owned her, and the Beastship herself, could perceive the correct docking coordinates. They were the ones doing all the real work. John had been more of a real captain when he had been operating one of the little scooters that performed duty maintenance on the exterior of the stations. On board the Evangeline, seated on the bridge, he was captain only of the gondola ship attached to Evangelines body. He did not navigate, he did not stand a watch. He was more of a social interface than anything else: a portable component of the ship that Tug could send forth to negotiate contracts, to make physical contact with Humans and other aliens, to supervise loading and unloading of any tangible cargoes they might carry. He thought of the years he had struggled to reach this position, the machinations hed gone through, and felt his gut tighten. And yet he wouldnt change what he had for anything else. Because it was as close as any Human could come to mastering an interstellar Beastship. As close as the Arthroplana would ever let a Human approach the freedom of the spaceways. He didnt know any other Beastship captain who didnt feel the same frustration with the biologically imposed ceiling on ambition. Hed reached the pinnacle of his career, but his fingertips would only brush mankinds ambition to roam the stars.
He spared a glance for Connie, the only other Human inhabitant on the Evangeline. She was the crew, as he was the captain. Tug was the owner, and Evangeline herself was no one knew what. According to Tug and the other Arthroplanas who owned them, the Beastships were alive and almost sentient. And horribly sensitive to being peeked and probed at, which was why despite their two-thousand-year acquaintanceship, no Humans had ever been allowed more than the most cursory of inspections of one. No Human understood the mechanisms by which a Beastship fed or communicated with another Beast or with the Arthroplana within its body, let alone how they achieved light speed. When questioned by Humans about the Beastships method of locomotion, the Arthroplanas either professed not to understand it either, or retreated into a semantic jungle of words that had no Human equivalent, interspersed with concepts that seemed more philosophical than physical. Their explanations served only to give those Humans who specialized in Arthroplana psychology more to argue about among themselves. Once, during one of their quarrels, John had accused Tug and the Arthroplana in general of dissembling with Humanity merely to keep their monopoly on interstellar travel. Tug had laughed, in his most annoying simulated giggle. For ten solid minutes.