Ship Who Searched (39 page)

And that puts it mildly.

The Counselor shook his head. “That doesn’t sound promising, my friend. Romeo and Juliet romances are all very well for the holos, but they’re hell on your insides. I’d see if I couldn’t shake my emotional attachment, if I was you. No matter how much you think you love someone, you can always turn the heat down if you decide that’s what you want to do about it.”

“I’m trying,” Alex told him, moving the focus of his concentration from the coffee cup to the bartender’s face. “Believe me, I’m
trying.
I’ve got a couple of weeks extended leave coming, and I’m going to use every minute of it in trying. I’ve got dates lined up; I’ve got parties I’m hitting—and a friend from CenSec is planning on taking me on an extended shore leave crawl.”

The bartender nodded, slowly. “I understand, and seeing a lot of attractive new people is one way to try and shake an emotional attachment. But friend—you are not going to find your answer in the bottom of a bottle.”

“Maybe not,” Alex replied sadly. “But at least I can find a little forgetfulness there.”

And as the bartender shook his head, he pushed away from his seat, turned, took a tight grip on his dubious equilibrium, and walked out the door, looking for a little more of that forgetfulness.

* * *

Angelica Guon-Stirling bint Chad slid into her leather-upholstered seat and smiled politely at the man seated next to her at the foot of the huge, black marble table. He nodded back and returned his attention to the stock market report he was reading on the screen of his datalink. Other men and women, dressed in conservative suits and the subdued hues of management, filed in and took the remaining places around the table. She refrained from chuckling. In a few more moments, he might well be more interested in her than in anything that datalink could supply. She’d gotten entry to the meeting on the pretext of representing her uncle’s firm on some unspecified business—they represented enough fluid wealth that the secretary had added her to the agenda and granted her entry to the sacred boardroom. It was a very well-appointed sacred boardroom; rich with the scent of expensive leather and hushed as only a room ringed with high-priced anti-surveillance equipment could be. The lights were set at exactly the perfect psychological hue and intensity for the maximum amount of alertness, the chair cradled her with unobtrusive comfort. The colors of warm white, cool black, and gray created an air of efficiency and importance, without being sterile.

None of this intimidated Angelica in the least. She had seen a hundred such board rooms in the past, and would probably see a thousand more before her career had advanced to the point that she was too busy to be sent out on such missions. Her uncle had not only chosen her to be Ms. Cade’s proxy because they were related; he had chosen her because she was the best proxy in the firm. And this particular venture was going to need a very delicate touch, for what Ms. Cade wanted was not anything the board of directors of Moto-Prosthetics was going to be ready for.
They
thought in terms of hostile takeovers, poison pills, golden parachutes. Ms. Cade had an entirely different agenda. If this were not handled well and professionally, the board might well fight, and that would waste precious time.

Though it might seem archaic, board meetings still took place in person. It was too easy to fake holos, to create a computer-generated simulacrum of someone who was dead or in cold sleep. That was why she was here now, with proxy papers in order and properly filed with all the appropriate authorities. Not that she minded. This was exciting work, and every once in a while there was a client like Hypatia Cade, who wanted something so different that it made everything else she had done up to now seem like a training exercise.

The meeting was called to order—and Angelica stood up before the chairman of the board could bring up normal business. Now was the time. If she waited until her scheduled turn, she could be lost or buried in nonsense—and as of this moment, the board’s business was no longer what had been scheduled anyway. It was hers, Angelica’s, to dictate. It was a heady brew, power, and Angelica drank it to the dregs as all eyes centered on her, most affronted that she had “barged in” on their business.

“Gentlemen,” she said smoothly, catching all their attentions. “Ladies. I believe you should all check your datalinks. If you do, you will see that my client, a Miz Hypatia Cade, has just this moment purchased a controlling interest in your preferred stock. As of this moment, Hypatia Cade
is
Moto-Prosthetics. As her proxy, she directs me to put the normal business before the board on hold for a moment.”

There was a sudden, shocked moment of silence—then a rustle as cuffs were pushed back—followed by another moment of silence as the members of the board took in the reality of her statement, verified that it was true, wondered how it had happened without them noticing, then waited for the axe to fall. All eyes were on Angelica; some of them desperate. Most of the desperate were those who backed risky ventures within the company, and were wondering if their risk-taking had made them into liabilities for the new majority owner.

Ah, power. I could disband the entire board and bring in my own people, and you all know it.
These were the moments that she lived for; the feeling of having the steel hand within the velvet glove—knowing that she held immense power, and choosing not to exercise it.

Angelica slid back down into her seat and smiled—smoothly, coolly, but encouragingly. “Be at ease, ladies and gentlemen. The very first thing that my client wishes to assure you of is that she intends no shakeups. She is satisfied with the way this company is performing, and she does not intend to interfere in the way you are running it.”

Once again, the faces around the table changed. Disbelief in some eyes, calculation in others. Then understanding. It would be business as usual. Nothing would change. These men and women still had
their
lives,
their
power, undisturbed.

She waited for the relief to set in, then pounced, leaning forward, putting her elbows down in the table, and steepling her hands before her. “But I must tell you that this will be the case only so long as Miz Cade is satisfied. And Miz Cade
does
have a private agenda for this company.”

Another pause, to let the words sink in. She saw the questions behind the eyes—what kind of private agenda? Was it something that this Cade person wanted them to do—or to make? Or was it something else altogether?

“It’s something that she wants you to construct; nothing you are not already capable of carrying off,” Angelica continued, relishing every moment. “In fact, I would venture to say that it is something you
could
be doing now, if you had the inclination. It’s just a little personal project, shall we say. . . .”

Alex’s mouth tasted like an old rug; his eyes were scratchy and puffed, and his head pounded. Every joint ached, his stomach churned unhappily, and he was not at all enjoying the way the room had a tendency to roll whenever he moved.

The wages of sin were counted out in hangovers, and this one was one of monumental proportions.

Well, that’s what happens when you go on a two-week drunk.

He closed his eyes, but that didn’t help. It hadn’t exactly been a two-week drunk, but he had never once in the entire span been precisely sober. He had chosen, quite successfully, to glaze his problems over with the fuzz and blurring of alcohol.

It was
all
that had happened. He had not shaken his fixation with Tia. He was just as hopelessly in love with her as he had been before he started his binge. And he had tried everything short of brain-wipe to get rid of the emotion; he’d made contact with some of his old classmates, he’d gone along with Neil and Chria on a celebratory spree, he’d talked to more bartender-Counselors, he’d picked up girl after girl. . . .

To no avail whatsoever.

Tia Cade it was who was lodged so completely in his mind and heart, and Tia Cade it would remain.

So, besides being hung over, he was still torn up inside. And without that blur of alcohol to take the edge off it, his pain was just as bad as before.

There was only one thing for it: he and Tia would have to work it all out, somehow. One way or another.

He opened his eyes again; his tiny rented cubicle spun slowly around, and he groaned as his stomach protested.

First things first; deal with the hangover. . . .

It was just past the end of the second shift when he made his way down the docks to the refit berth where CenSec had installed Tia for her repair work. It had taken that long before he felt like a human being again. One thing was certain; that was
not
something he intended to indulge in ever again. One long binge in his life was enough.

I just hope I haven’t fried too many brain cells with stupidity. I don’t have any to spare.

He found the lock closed, but there were no more workers swarming about, either inside the bay or out. That was a good sign, since it probably meant all the repairs were over. He’d used the day-and-night noise as an excuse to get away, assuming Tia would contact him if she needed to.

As he hit the lock controls and gave them his palm to read, it suddenly occurred to him that she hadn’t made any attempt at all to contact him in all the time he’d been gone.

Had he frightened her?

Had she reported him?

The lock cycled quickly, and he stepped onto a ship that was uncannily silent.

The lights had been dimmed down; the only sounds were of the ventilation system. Tia did not greet him; nothing did. He might as well have been on an empty, untenanted ship, without even an AI.

Something was wrong.

His heart pounding, his mouth dry with apprehension, he went to the main cabin. The boards were all dark, with no signs of activity.

Tia wasn’t sulking; Tia didn’t sulk. There was nothing functioning that could not be handled by the stand-alone redundant micros.

He dropped his bag on the deck, from fingers that had gone suddenly nerveless.

There could be only one cause for this silence, this absence of activity. Tia was gone.

Either the BB authorities had found out about how he felt, or Tia herself had complained. They had come and taken her away, and he would never see or talk to her again.

As if to confirm his worst fears, a glint of light on an open plexy window caught his eye. Theodore Edward Bear was gone, his tiny shrine empty.

No—

But the evidence was inescapable.

Numb with shock, he found himself walking towards his own cabin. Perhaps there would be a note there, in his personal database. Perhaps there would be a message waiting from CS, ordering him to report for official Counseling.

Perhaps both. It didn’t matter. Tia was gone, and very little mattered anymore.

Black despair washed into him, a despair so deep that not even tears would relieve it. Tia was gone. . . .

He opened the door to his cabin, and the light from the corridor shone inside, making the person sitting on his bunk blink.

Person sitting on my—

Female. It was definitely female. And she wasn’t wearing anything like a CS uniform, Counselor, Advocate, or anything else. In fact, she wasn’t wearing very much at all—a little neon-red Skandex unitard that left nothing to imagine.

He turned on the light, an automatic reflex. His visitor stared up at him, lips creasing in a shy smile. She was tiny, smaller than he had first thought; dark and elfin, with big blue eyes, the image of a Victorian fairy—and oddly familiar.

In her hands, she gently cradled the missing Ted Bear. It was the bear that suddenly shook his brain out of inactive and into overdrive.

He stared; he gripped the side of the door. “T-T-Tia?” he stammered.

She smiled again, with less shyness. “Hi,” she said—and it was Tia’s voice, sounding a bit—odd—coming from a mouth and not a speaker. “I’m sorry I had to shut so much down, I can’t run
this
and the ship, too.”

It was Tia—
Tia!
—sitting there in a body, a human body, like the realization of his dream!

“This?” he replied cleverly.

“I hope you don’t mind if I don’t get up,” she continued, a little ruefully. “I’m not very good at walking yet. They just delivered this today, and I haven’t had much practice in it yet.”

“It?” he said, sitting heavily down on his bunk and staring at her. “How—what—”

“Do you like it?” she asked, pathetically eager for his approval. He wasn’t sure what he was supposed to approve of—the body?

“How could I
not
like it—you—” His head was spinning as badly as it had a few hours ago. “Tia, what on earth
is
this?”

She blinked, and giggled. “I keep forgetting. You know all that bonus money we’ve been getting? I kept investing it, then reinvesting the profits in Moto-Prosthetics. But when we got back here, I was thinking about something Doctor Kenny told me, that they had the capability to make a body like this, but that there was no way to put a naked brain in it, and there was so
much
data-transfer needed to run it that the link could only be done at very short distances.”

“Oh.” He couldn’t help but stare at her; this was his dream, his daydream—his—

Never mind.

“Anyway,” she continued, blithely unaware that she had stunned him into complete silence, “it seemed to me that the body would be perfect for a brainship, I mean, we’ve got all the links already, and it wouldn’t be any harder to control a body from inside than a servo. But he was already an investor, and he told me it wasn’t likely they’d ever build a body like that, since there was no market for it, because it would cost as much as a brainship contract buy-out.”

“But how—”

She laughed aloud. “That was why I took all my share of the bonuses and bought more stock! I bought a controlling interest, then I told them to build me a body! I don’t need a buy-out—I don’t really want a buy-out—not since the Institute decided to give us the EsKay homeworld assignment.”

He shook his head. “That simple? It hardly seems possible . . . didn’t they argue?”