THE SHIP WHO SEARCHED
By Anne McCaffrey & Mercedes Lackey
CHAPTER ONE
The ruby light on the com unit was blinking when Hypatia Cade emerged from beneath the tutor's hood, with quadratic equations dancing before her seven year old eyes. Not the steady blink that meant a recorded message, nor the triple-beat that meant Mum or Dad had left her a note, but the double blink with a pause between each pair that meant there was someone Upstairs, waiting for her to open the channel.
Someone Upstairs meant an unscheduled ship. Tia knew very well when all the scheduled visits were; they were on the family calendar and were the first things reported by the AI when they all had breakfast That made it important for her to answer, quickly, and not take the time to suit up and run to the dig for Mum or Dad. It must not have been an emergency, though, or the AI would have interrupted her lesson.
She rubbed her eyes to rid them of the dancing variables, and pushed her stool over to the com console so she could reach all the touch-pads when she stood on it. She would never have been able to reach things sitting in a chair, of course. With brisk efficiency that someone three times her age might have envied, she cleared the board, warmed up the relay, and opened the line.
'Exploratory Team Cee-One-Two-One,' she enunciated carefully, for the microphone was old, and often lost anything not spoken clearly. 'Exploratory Team Cee-One-Two-One, receiving. Come in, please. Over.'
She counted out the four second lag to orbit and back, nervously. One-hypotenuse, Two-hypotenuse, Three- hypotenuse, Four-hypotenuse. Who could it be? They didn't get unscheduled ships very often, and it meant bad news as often as not. Planet pirates, plague, or slavers. Trouble with some of the colony planets. Or worse, artifact thieves in the area. A tiny dig like this one was all too vulnerable to a hit-and-run raid. Of course, digs on the Salomon-Kildaire Entities rarely yielded anything a collector would lust after, but would thieves know that? Tia had her orders, if raiders came and she was alone, to duck down the hidden escape tunnel that would blow the dome; to run to the dark little hidey away from the dig that was the first thing Mum and Dad put in once the dome was up.
'This is courier TM Three-Seventy. Tia, dearest, is that you? Don't worry, love, we have a non-urgent message run and you're on the way, so we brought you your packets early. Over.' The rich, contralto voice was a bit flattened by the poor speaker, but still welcome and familiar, Tia jumped up and down a bit on her stool in excitement.
'Moira! Yes, yes, it's me! But, 'She frowned a little. The last time Moira had been here, her designation had been CM, not TM. 'Moira, what happened to Charlie?' Her seven year old voice took on the half scolding tones of someone much older. 'Moira, did you scare away another brawn? Shame on you! Remember what they told you when you kicked Ari out your airlock! Uh, over.'
Four seconds; an eternity. 'I didn't scare him away, darling,' Moira replied, though Tia thought she sounded just a little guilty. 'He decided to get married, raise a brood of his own, and settle down as a dirtsider. Don't worry, this will be the last one, I'm sure of it. Tomas and I get along famously. Over.'
'That's what you said about Charlie,' Tia reminded her darkly. 'And about Ari, and Lilian, and Jules, and,'
She was still reciting names when Moira interrupted her. 'Turn on the landing beacon, Tia, please. We can talk when I'm not burning fuel in orbital adjustments.' Her voice turned a little bit sly. 'Besides, I brought you a birthday present. That's why I couldn't miss stopping here. Over.'
As if a birthday present was going to distract her from the litany of Moira's foiled attempts to settle on a brawn!
Well, maybe just a little.
She turned on the beacon, then feeling a little smug, activated the rest of the landing sequence, bringing up the pad lights and guidance monitors, then hooking in the AI and letting it know it needed to talk to Moira's navigational system. She hadn't known how to do all that, the last time Moira was here. Moira'd had to set down with no help at all.
She leaned forward for the benefit of the mike. 'All clear and ready to engage landing sequence, Moira. Uh, what did you bring me? Over,'
'Oh, you bright little penny!' Moira exclaimed, her voice brimming with delight. 'You've got the whole system up! You have been learning things since I was here last! Thank you, dear, and you'll find out what I brought when I get down there. Over and out.'
Oh well, she had tried. She jumped down from her stool, letting the AI that ran the house and external systems take over the job of bringing the brainship in. Or rather, giving the brainship the information she needed to bring herself in; Moira never handed over her helm to anyone if she had a choice in the matter. That was part of the problem she'd had with keeping brawns. She didn't trust them at the helm, and let them know that. Ari, in particular, had been less than amused with her attitude and had actually tried to disable her helm controls to prove
