Free Three Lives Of Mary by David M. Kelly Page B

Haven?"
    Again the response was slow. "I think so. I lost a sub-c engine. Some of my control circuits are damaged. There's damage to the hull, but the FTL drive is okay from what I can tell. Mary… some of my Cynetics aren't working properly."
    Mary revised her estimates. This was going to be very expensive. The Cynetics interfaced between the human brain and the hardware they controlled. Without them a CySap literally couldn't function—especially Total Conversions like Ben and her.
    "It's okay. We'll take care of that too."
     
    ****
     
    Mary ran a number of diagnostic checks, her fingers sliding deftly across the arched, white control panel. She always felt that she was intruding when she had to "poke about" Ben's internals, but knew from long experience that it no longer bothered him. Whether the diagnostics would tell her anything more than he could, she wasn't sure.
    "Port rear sub-c engine is out. You're limping here, bud," she said.
    "I'm compensating with the three remaining ones. We can still break orbit. It'll take us longer to get to the Jump point though."
    Mary tapped the console. "How much?"
    "About thirty percent. Nothing to worry about, unless those critters develop space travel in the next seventeen hours." Ben dimmed the lights in the control room.
    "Seventeen? Can't be helped, I guess."
    "Not unless you want to step out and hitch a ride. I'm sure with your 'natural talents' you'd have no problem."
    Mary laughed, for the first time since coming back on-board. Her "talents" were no longer natural and unlikely to attract anyone except another CySap. But it still felt good that Ben thought about her that way after all their years together.
    "Now you'll have to upgrade me to the new XR-13 engines. Twenty percent more thrust. Think how much time we'd save."
    "We upgraded you just a couple of missions ago. Doesn't it ever stop?"
    Ben ignored her question. "There's some damage to my hull armor that will be expensive to fix, but isn't a threat to structural or atmospheric integrity. Still worried about my Cynetics though." Ben hesitated. "I can't diagnose them internally with any accuracy."
    So was Mary. The Cynetic interfaces were highly complex signal processors that mapped the hardware to the neural connections of the brain.  From the perspective of the brain, the attached hardware replaced the human organs and limbs. If damaged their signals couldn't be relied on, making accurate self-diagnosis impossible.
    "Lemme take a look. See what I can find." Mary isolated the main signals and fed the diagnostics directly to her optical circuits, rather than the screens where Ben would be able to "see" them too. Almost half of the readouts were blinking dark red signifying heavy damage.
    "There's some damage, but nothing too bad." She didn't want Ben to worry more than he already was. He had the whole ship to run. "They'll patch you up in five minutes once we get to Haven. You'll see."
    Mary traced some of the heavier damage trails and found a clump leading to Ben's Dataract. The Dataract was a holographic supplemental memory that stored the information he gathered on the surveys, along with a mountain of data related to interstellar navigation and spaceship operations. She felt cold, even though she was no longer affected by ambient temperatures. "Ben, have you got the Jump sequence for Haven programmed in?"
    "Sure, why?"
    "No reason, just want to get back as soon as possible. That place has me on edge."
    "That was something for sure. The professor types will love the reports. They'll be flocking to DX5151-4 inside of twelve months, you'll see."
    "Fat lot of good that will do us." Mary closed off the diagnostics. She wouldn't learn any more by watching them. They needed to get back for a full set of tests. "We only get paid for potential habitable worlds. Anything below fifty-five percent gets us pocket change, you know that."
    Mary didn't correct Ben's error on the planetary designation. It could have been an honest