Free The Ship Who Sang by Anne McCaffrey Page A

if she gave herself half a chance. The tape ended abruptly, as if there should be more. The omission, probably on the last tag of the mission reel, seemed to sing out its absence far louder than the tritest concluding evaluation or recommendations. Central Worlds had many devious facets and perhaps such an obvious omission was one. Surely Kira sensed it. That damned biograph left too much unsaid, particularly apparent to a brawn trainee. Helva’smind danced with the possibilities and gnawed mental teeth against the silent hold-cue. In the meantime, Helva was faced with a very awkward situation, her new partner stiff with anticipation and predisposed by Central Worlds to make a bad first adjustment to Helva.
    Helva made a rude, sibilant noise and was relieved to see Kira react in surprise to it.
    â€˜Brains they got?’ Helva demanded contemptuously. ‘I don’t call that a proper tape. They forgot half the garbage anyway. Ssscheh!’ and she repeated her exasperation noise. ‘Oh, well, I expect we’ll do fine together if only because they left out the usual nonsense. Besides, the mission
is
temporary.’
    Kira said nothing, but the woodenness left her slender body as if an anticipated ordeal had been canceled. She swallowed hard, licking her lips nervously, still unsure of her position, having steeled her nerves for something unpleasant.
    â€˜Let’s get the cargo aboard and turn me into a rocking ship.’
    Kira rose, her body awkward, but she managed to smile at Helva’s column. ‘With pleasure. Have your holds been outfitted?’
    â€˜â€œWith yards and yards of lacing/and a bicycle built for two on it,”’ Helva replied, quipping from an ancient patter song. She was determined to establish a comfortable empathy.
    Kira’s smile was less tentative and her body motion became more fluid.
    â€˜Yes, it would look like that, I guess.’
    â€˜Of course I’ve never seen a bicycle built for two . . .’
    â€˜Or a purple cow?’ and Kira giggled girlishly.
    â€˜Hmmm. Purple cow, my dear brawn, is an all too apt analogy for our present occupation,’ Helva replied, ignoring the edge to Kira’s laughter. ‘And don’t tell me I’ll have room for 300,000 mechanical teats in the cargo space Central Worlds saw fit to give me.’
    â€˜Oh, no,’ Kira said. ‘We don’t have but the first 100,000 accounted for as of the time the tape was cut. We’ll swing out from Regulus toward Nekkar, picking up donations as we go, deliver them within the 4-week time limit when the fetuses must be either implanted or decanted, and swing around the Wheel until we do meet the quota.’
    Helva knew this from the tape. ‘Three hundred thousand isn’t a very big number for a planetary population of a million that needs to expand.’
    â€˜My dear KH-834,’ and Kira savored the name, ‘the word “temporary” particularly when used by our beloved Service, has elastic qualities of infinite expansion. Also, another team, with drone transports, is recruiting orphans from unsocialized worlds to insure the proper age variations. But born children aren’t
our
concern.’
    â€˜The heavens be praised!’ Helva muttered under her breath. She did not have room to transport many active live bodies nor the inclination, not so soon after Ravel.
    Kira smiled back at Helva over her shoulder as she contacted the Hospital Unit to request transfer.
    â€˜Will you activate the pumping equipment?’ she asked Helva, who was in the process of doing just that.
    The miles of plastic tubing, once filled with the tiny sacs of fertilized ova, would contain the nutritive and amniotic fluids necessary for the growth of the embryos.
    The continuous ribbon of tiny compartments, each with its minute living organism, was prepared for the voyage with the caution and care of a major surgical operation on a head of planet. Each