- Prologue

Theo took a breath.

'You believe in this Bechimo then? It isn't just a coping—an artifact of his wanting to survive?'

Uncle leaned forward, his old-young face earnest.

'Please, listen and hear, Theo Waitley. The keys, both of them together, are Old Technology, good technology, and they speak to some of the devices in this ship which are also Old Technology. Bechimo is the next step; it was a hybrid built of the Old Tech that was fading of age and very advanced current tech of its time. And that is its danger to the Scouts, and to these dissidents, that what we built really was, and is, better than what they have and treasure.'

Uncle's hands tussled with words or ideas she couldn't read.

'We?' she ventured, at last.

He sighed, gently.

'Call it we, if you like, Pilot. I believe in the Bechimo because I stood on her deck as she was being finished, so I know she exists. We can discuss the philosophy of these things called existence and self over a drink sometime, or a pot of tea, if you like. In the meantime, there is an issue of time, on several accounts.

'Win Ton yo'Vala's prognosis if I turn him back to the Scouts is not good: perhaps two hundred or three hundred Standard days, maybe four hundred if they are content to allow him to stay in the machine until he dies, useless and helpless, inside a cocoon. My machine—well, the machine calculates that at the current rate Win Ton will have a series of dozens of good days, and then of tens, and then of fours or threes, all interspersed with more and longer time within the med unit. With good food, diet, exercise, care, he may well have a thousand days or more of interrupted, painful survival.

'If we can get him to Bechimo, the ship should be able to restore him. It may well improve him. Then he may have centuries, as you should.'

Theo bit her lip.

'Win Ton said Bechimo was looking for me.'

'Yes, that's true. And with both of you together here it may well find you—and quickly! Which we can by no means allow!'

'Whyever not? If Win Ton needs the ship, then let it come here. I'll open it, we'll get him into this super-rated autodoc, and—'

'Think, Pilot. What happens here or anywhere public when a self-controlled ship comes to port demanding a space, or just taking a space? If someone warns it away, and it assumes you, or Win Ton, is in danger, it may attack—surely if someone tries to board it without your permission, it will repel boarders again!' He tapped the table for emphasis. 'If you do not know this, know it now. Bechimo is self-aware. It is also ignorant, having been reft of an association which would have taught manners and something of human interaction.'

'Win Ton said it was an AI,' she admitted, and sighed. Uncle was right. Better to let the ship find her in . . . less crowded conditions.

'How will I know it?' she asked. 'Bechimo.'

'We can provide a matching program,' Uncle said, and reached further, to tap the contract at her elbow.

'What I want you to do, Theo Waitley, is to accept my contract. There is a ship in orbit, an old ship but serviceable and proud. The port records are open to you ahead of time and you may check it thoroughly. It is built on an old Terran commissioner's ship plan, and is mostly standard, aside it has had several power upgrades. Accept the contract, and go. Bechimo will find you, I make no doubt. Be canny and choose your time and location. Once you have it in hand, then the choice of what you will do is, as every choice a pilot makes, your own.'

He paused, regarded his hand a moment, then looked at Theo with no sign of anything but seriousness.

'In the meantime, it is best, I believe, for all of us, that you accept my contract.'

Theo looked down at the contract, the phrase Solcintra, Liad coming into sharp focus. Clan Korval was based in Solcintra, Liad, as she knew from the news reports. Delm Korval—who was delm to pilotkind, wasn't that what Kara had said? Her father, Win Ton—pilots both. Would it be possible—?

And what could it hurt, she thought suddenly, to ask? Neither Father's disappearance nor Win Ton's circumstance was something that Sam Tim could solve on his own!

'I'll do it,' she said.

Uncle inclined his head, and offered her a pen.

'Your signature, please.' He produced a pouch from somewhere, and dumped its contents on the table before her: five cantra pieces, a ship's key, and what looked like a clay game piece.

'The ship I wish you to pilot is Arin's Toss, Pilot. Dulsey, please bring a screen, so that the pilot may review the records.'

Theo looked at the small fortune sitting beside her, idly reaching out and touching the mint-fresh coins with the stern face on it, and then the key . . . and then the clay piece, which felt oddly fuzzy for something so hard, which felt comforting, the way the key round her neck had felt when she'd looked at Win Ton, who would be her copilot if he could . . .

Now that she had decided, now that all of her problems seemed to be pointing in the same direction, she wanted to lift, to fly, to be doing something.

She stood.

'Just a moment, Pilot; Dulsey will be here—'

'That's fine,' she interrupted. 'If the ship will fly, I'll fly it.'