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of him and about his reputation. She, Helva the 834, knew another side of the man "himself," without
image or affectation, and that personality was very likable, too likable. She sighed as she watched, for the
twelfth time, the Lyraen dances and let herself be soothed. She could carry her true love through the stars
and never touch him. But she could be more to Parollan than any other female in the entire galaxy, and
woe unto her who tried to part them now!
Beta Corvi pulsed a vivid orangered on the viewscreen as Helva picked up the first Corviki space buoy
on her scanners. Instantly it colored, a microsun in the carpet of blackness.
She roused'Niall, who was sleeping in eaglespread abandon. Simultaneously the psychetransfer circuit in
her mind was activated and she felt the query of the alien mind.
In the time it took Niall to rise from his bunk, the Corviki had established the identity of their visitors, the
reason for their return, the alterations in her hull and the inactive core of the new drive, and issued her
orbital instructions.
"Hey," Niall protested as a surge of power, uninitiated by Helva, sent him lurching into the door frame.
"Sorry, pal, they just took over."
"Took over?" Niall padded into the main cabin, rubbing his right arm. "I thought you'd wake me when we
reached their first buoy."
"I did." She turned on the rear screen, focused on the fastreceding marker. "The Corviki don't waste
time, which they consider another form of energy."
"Hmmm. An interesting concept."
"We're approaching orbit," she told him.
He blinked in astonishment. "One thing sure: those modifications of yours can sure take speed."
"A point."
"Hey, will they give me time to eat? A cup of coffee, at least?" He gestured at his nakedness. "The head?
Clothes?"
"We should have a few moments to spare," Helva said with a laugh. His expression was
smallboyembarrassed.
"Ever the courteous hosts."
He had managed to get himself assembled by the time the glowing luminosity that was Beta Corvi's third
planet filled the viewscreen. Somewhere down in that moiling envelope of methane, ammonia, and
hydrogen were the Corviki. Or were Solar Prane and Kuria Ster, Chaddress or a vengeful Ansra Colmer
rising in those spectacular flares to greet the visitors? If anything remained of those personalities. Helva
preferred to share Dobrinon's optimistic view that those immigrants retained something of their former
personalities.
Helva felt the change in the ship before it registered on the console before Niall.
"We're in orbit? We can transfer?"
The eagerness in his voice produced a perverse reluctance in Helva. Niall couldn't know, despite all she
and Davo and the others had told him, how devastating that experience could be, how insidious. Now a
new fear threatened her: what could that experience do to the fragile bond they'd been contriving?
"Yes, we can transfer," she said, trying to keep the growing apprehension out of her voice. And she'd
thought, Dobrinon had assured her, that she'd made a good adjustment to this return. She'd fooled only
herself.
Niall swung the chair round, helmet halfraised to his head.
"Is it still that bad, Helva? I can go alone if it's that hard."
"This we have to do together." "That's the operative phrase, m'girl, together." "Let's go together."
"That's my Helva." The helmet masked his eyes but not the eager confident smile.
Helva fought/released herself to the experience, knowing an instant of fleeting terror at being outside her
safe shell. But as the transfer occurred, she reminded herself that she bad survived a worse terror of
complete sense deprivation on Borealis, survived it only because of the Corviki episode. And Niall was
with her this time! The pressure enveloped her in a deceptive comfort. She shuddered and the streamers
floated up from beneath her.
"Niall!" she exuded, anxious lest in that instant she might have transferred at a distance from him.
"I'm a bloody sea monster." Niall's reassuring dominance was just beyond the large frond. "There you
are!" And he emerged, a creature like herself, already coloring the shell with his own personal intensity. A
creature like herself!
"Helva! You're..." And they spun toward each other.
"Do not express energy in such a sequence!" A new dominance, dark, dense, powerful, overwhelmed
them with its authority. "You have imperfect control of your shells."
By a force more potent than their pentup frustrations, they were held apart. The energies which they
yearned intensely to combine were dampened by the dominance.
Deliberately, Helva now sought to bury her alltoohuman reactions into the Corviki ethos. "Conserve [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]