Brian Stableford Hooded Swan 6 Swan Song

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the Swan, but I couldn't help feeling that she was walking blindfold into hell
and that Jacob Zimmer-and Charlot, indirectly-were letting her do it. I didn't
know what she'd done on the liners-she could have been o-in-c of the catering
department or ship's surgeon and still be equally well qualified to take third
string on a Library yacht. As her captain, I felt it was my duty to take time
out sometime to warn her of the kind of thing she was getting herself into,
but I knew she wouldn't let it put her off. What crewman ever takes the
ravings of a ship's captain seriously? We had two passengers. One was Zimmer
himself, who had tidied up affairs on New Alex very neatly and was off to lick
his master's hand. Zimmer was a nonentity-a relay in the vast human computer
which parasitised the real hardware of New Alexandria. He was just an operant
function-a flashing light on a display panel. It had been quite
straightforward going to him and getting the job. We'd met before, of course,
on Hallsthammer, and he'd favoured me with a flicker of recognition. Like a
true diplomat, he'd not given the slightest sign to indicate that he knew all
that had happened between the two meetings. He took me on as pilot and captain
without blinking an eyelid. I was momentarily surprised that he handed over
the captaincy with a straight face, when Charlot had taken such care to keep
it out of my hands on past occasions, but I knew that it only reflected the
change in my volunteer status. I was no longer the rebel, the determined fly
in the ointment. I had passed the test and been made a member of the family.
Married to the Library without a shotgun in my back. Stranger things, they
say, happen in space.
The other passenger was somewhat more important. She was a doctor. Nobody had
told me why she was going to Darlow, but I had a strong and confident
suspicion. Her name was Lelia Rolfe, and she was a specialist in spinal
diseases. Titus Charlot hadn't been well for some time now, and I was willing
to bet that it wasn't the male menopause that was bothering him.
Despite the relative overpopulation of my microcosm, I was alone in the
control room for almost the whole duration of the flight. I preferred to
celebrate my reunion with the bird in relative privacy. I didn't want anybody
to talk to me.
I caught the persistent murmur of voices filtering through the open circuit
linking me with the engine room, and I knew Sam was doing a lot of talking. It
had to be Sam because Johnny's mouth would have been close enough to the mike
for me to have heard him if he'd vouchsafed more than the occasional grunt or
monosyllabic reply. I guessed that Sam was giving him a long chat about his
long and arduous career as a tail-ender on rust-buckets. Johnny could do worse
than listen. There was a lot that Johnny could learn from Sam if he'd only
listen the right way. I could maybe have taught him the same things myself,
but when I talk in that kind of vein I just don't communicate. I spill over
too much. I haven't Sam's detachment. Sam could explain to him what it was all
about without knocking holes in his head. I hoped Johnny would learn, because
Johnny had a lot in him. He was a potential spaceman-without a home, or even a
race. A man of the transfinite gulf. Provided that he didn't die in the
Nightingale.
Page 37
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While the Swan grooved at thirty thou for hour after hour I let my mind run
back and forth along a groove of its own. The man from Caradoc and the
farcical way that Commander Denton of the New Alexandrian Police Force had
snatched me away from his clutching fingers now seemed like something of a
joke. A nonsensical, inconsequential interlude. Soulier had been playing for
keeps, playing hard and rough at the game he thought was the real man's game.
But the whole purpose seemed ludicrous against a background of silent stars.
His only interest in me had been commercial. Bribery or vengeance-they were
only opposite aspects of the same concern. What was the point? Caradoc's power [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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