Free Ship Who Searched by Anne McCaffrey, Mercedes Lackey

know.”
    Anna leaned down to whisper something through her suit-mike. “Tia, if you’re afraid of crying, don’t be. If I were in your position, I’d cry. And if you would like to be alone, tell us, all right?”
    “Okay,” she replied, faintly. “Uh, can I be alone for a while, please?”
    “Sure.” She stopped pretending to fuss with equipment and nodded shortly at the holo-screen. Kenny brought up one hand to wave at her, and the screen blinked out. Anna left through what Tia now realized was a decontam-airlock a moment later. Leaving her alone with the hissing, humming equipment, and Ted.
    She swallowed a lump in her throat and thought very hard about what they’d told her.
    She wasn’t getting any better, she was getting worse. They didn’t know what was wrong. That was on the negative side. On the plus side, there was nothing wrong with Mum and Dad, and they hadn’t said to give up all hope.
    Therefore, she should continue to assume that they would find a cure.
    She cleared her throat. “Hello?” she said.
    As she had thought, there was an AI monitoring the room.
    “Hello,” it replied, in the curiously accentless voice only an AI could produce. “What is your need?”
    “I’d like to watch a holo. History,” she said, after a moment of thought. “There’s a holo about Queen Hatshepsut of Egypt. It’s called Phoenix of Ra , I think. Have you got that?”
    That had been on the forbidden list at home; Tia knew why. There had been some pretty steamy scenes with the Pharaoh and her architect in there. Tia was fascinated by the only female to declare herself Pharaoh, however, and had been decidedly annoyed when a little sex kept her from viewing this one.
    “Yes, I have access to that,” the AI said after a moment. “Would you like to view it now?”
    So they hadn’t put any restrictions on her viewing privileges! “Yes,” she replied; then, eager to strike while she had the chance, “And after that, I’d like to see the Aten trilogy, about Ahnkenaten and the heretics—that’s Aten Rising, Aten at Zenith, and Aten Descending. ”
    Those had more than a few steamy scenes; she’d overheard her mother saying that some of the theories that had been dramatized fairly explicitly in the trilogy, while they made comprehensible some otherwise inexplicable findings, would get the holos banned in some cultures. And Braddon had chuckled and replied that the costumes alone—or lack of them—while completely accurate, would do the same. Still—Tia figured she could handle it. And if it was that bad, it would certainly help keep her mind off her own troubles!
    “Very well,” the AI said agreeably. “Shall I begin?”
    “Yes,” she told it, with another caress of her cheek on Ted’s soft fur. “Please.”

    Pota and Braddon watched their daughter with frozen faces, faces that Tia was convinced covered a complete welter of emotions that they didn’t want her to see. She took a deep breath, enunciated “Chair forward, five feet,” and her Moto-Chair glided forward and stopped before it touched them.
    “Well, now I can get around at least,” she said, with what she hoped sounded like cheer. “I was getting awfully tired of the same four walls!”
    Whatever it was that she had—and now she heard the words “proto-virus” and “dystrophic sclerosis” bandied about more often than not—the medics had decided it wasn’t contagious. They’d let Pota and Braddon out of isolation, and they’d moved Tia to another room, one that had a door right onto the corridor. Not that it made much difference, except that Anna didn’t have to use a decontam airlock and pressure-suit anymore. And now Kenny came to see her in person. But four white walls were still four white walls, and there wasn’t much variation in rooms.
    Still—she was afraid to ask for things to personalize the room. Afraid that if she made it more her own—she’d be stuck in it. Forever.
    Her numbness and paralysis extended to