He blinked. 'You really don't know? Because you are you,' he said. 'It's really appallingly simple. You have a sparkling personality. You don't try to flatten your voice and sound like an AI, the way some of your classmates have. You aren't at all afraid to have an opinion. You have a teddy bear walled up in your central cabin like a piece of artwork, but you don't talk about it. That's a mystery, and I love mysteries, especially when they imply something as personable as a teddy bear. When you talk, I can hear you smiling, frowning, whatever. You're a shell-person, Hypatia, with the emphasis on person. I like you. I had hoped that you would like me. I figured we could keep each other entertained for a long, long time.'
Well, he'd out-blunted her, and that was a fact. And, startled her. She was surprised, not a little flattered, and getting to think that Alex might not be a bad choice as a brawn after all. 'Well, I like you,' she replied hesitantly, 'but...'
'But what?' he asked, boldly. 'What is it?'
'I don't like being manipulated,' she replied. 'And you've been doing just that: manipulating me, or trying.'
He made a face. 'Guilty as charged. Part of it is just something I do without thinking about it. I come from a low-middle-class neighborhood. Where I come from, you either charm your way out of something or fight your way out of it, and I prefer the former. I'll try not to do it again,'
'That's not all,' she warned. 'I've got, certain plans, that might get in the way, if you don't help me.' She paused for effect. 'It's about what I want to hunt down. The homeworld of the Salomon-Kildaire Entities.'
'The EsKays?' he replied, sitting up, ramrod straight 'Oh, my, if this weren't real life I'd think you were telepathic or something! The EsKays are my favorite archeological mystery! I'm dying to find out why they'd set up shop, then vanish! And if we could find the homeworld, Hypatia, we'd be holo-stars! Stellar achievers!'
Her thoughts milled about for a moment. This was very strange. Very strange indeed.
'I assume that part of our time Out would be spent checking things out at the EsKay sites?' he said, his eyes warming. 'Looking for things the archeologists may not find? Looking for more potential sites?'
'Something like that,' she told him. 'That's why I need your cooperation. Sometimes I'm going to need a mobile partner on this one.'
He nodded, knowingly. 'Lovely lady, you are looking at him,' he replied. 'And only too happy to. If there's one thing I'm a sucker for, it's a quest. And this is even better, a quest at the service of a lady!'
'A quest?' she chuckled a little. 'What, do you want us to swear to find the Holy Grail now?'
'Why not?' he said lightly. 'Here, I'll start.' He stood up, faced not her column but Ted E. Bear in his niche. 'I, Alexander Joli-Chanteu, solemnly swear that I shall join brainship Hypatia One-Oh-Three-Three in a continuing and ongoing search for the homeworld of the Salomon-Kildaire Entities. I swear that this will be a joint project for as long as we have a joint career. And I swear that I shall give her all the support and friendship she needs in this search, so help me. So let it be witnessed and sealed by yon bear.'
Tia would have giggled, except that he looked so very solemn.
'All right,' he said, when he sat down again. 'What about you?'
What about her? She had virtually accepted him as her brawn, hadn't she? And hadn't he sworn himself into her service, like some kind of medieval knight?
'All right,' she replied. 'I, Hypatia One-Oh-Three-Three, do solemnly swear to take Alexander Joli-Chanteu into my service, to share with him my search for the EsKay homeworld, and to share with him those rewards both material and immaterial that come our way in this search. I pledge to keep him as my brawn unless we both agree mutually to sever the contract I swear it by, by Theodore Edward Bear.'
He grinned, so wide and infectiously, that she wished she could return it. 'I guess we're a team, then,' she said.
'Then here, 'he lifted an invisible glass, 'is to our joint career. May it be as long and fruitful as the Cades.'
He pretended to drink, then to smash the invisible glass in an invisible fireplace, little guessing Hypatia's silence was due entirely to frozen shock. The Cades? How could he-
But before she vocalized anything, she suddenly realized that he could not possibly have known who and what she really was.
The literature on the Cades would never have mentioned their paralyzed daughter, nor the tragedy that caused her paralysis. That simply wasn't done in academic circles, a world in which only facts and speculations existed, and not sordid details of private lives. The Cades weren't stellar personalities, the kind people made docudramas out of. There was no way he could have known about Hypatia Cade.
And once someone went into the shell-person program, their last name was buried in a web of eyes-only and
