Andre Norton - Derelict For Trade

A light tapat the door of Rael’s cabin broke her concentration. With a surge of regret, she marked her place in the datafile on blood antibodies and stored it before opening her door.

Outside was Dane, looking huge, awkward, and shamefaced. As always, it was hard to believe that this was the same man who had dashed through fire—facing imminent explosion—to save people, or had had the courage to force his way into a vid station and make a broadcast to all of Terran space, colonies included. Or the same man who had gently earned the trust of two terrified brachs, brought to sentience through the influence of esperite—

Esperite.

Did Dane know how much he had changed since the first day he’d come aboard the Queen? Right now he obviously didn’t feel any different, she thought wryly as she grabbed up the knapsack of supplies that she and Craig had chosen, using the reaction to push herself against the deck as she strapped it on. At least it wasn’t just her. She’d caught the same look of slightly distrustful bemusement on his face when Ali was in his drawling, sardonic moods. It seemed to have something to do with personal beauty—a subject that it just didn’t do to bring up when one of the objects of distrust was oneself, she thought with an inward smile as

she whisked out of her cabin and tabbed the door shut.

Following Dane and Tooe to the outer hatch, she abandoned her own thoughts and listened with growing curiosity to the rapid conversation between the little Rigelian and the cargo apprentice. They conversed in a mixture of languages with a speed that argued a half-year’s acquaintance, and not just a few days’. Remembering what Tau had told her, Rael felt a prickle of awe—and uneasiness. Mindful of his caution, she repressed the urge to question Dane about how he’d managed to understand Tooe so fast.

Tooe led them to a lonely corner of a storage area, then said, "We go now." And she pulled herself into an old air shaft.

Dane demagged his boots and pulled himself after, Rael following. Before long they were in free fall, which made the trip much easier.

What she saw depressed her, the more so as they penetrated deeper into the older parts of the Spin Axis, for Tooe led them through spaces not designed for sentient life, a wasteland of abandoned machinery and cargo and the infrastructure that made life on the cylome possible—for no artificial biome could be as stable as a planet.

But is that so different from a human city ? she thought suddenly. They too have their ugly underbelly .

But nothing like this. The lack of orientation, the gloom and drifting fog from leaking pipes, the weird ropes and catwalks stretching crazily in every direction, the flickering shadows cast by bulky junk of unknown origin—Rael found herself wishing she could wake from a dream far too like nightmares that had haunted her years ago, of being lost in a world that made no sense. What did this life do to those who lived it?

There were only two of Tooe’s group in the nest right then, besides Nunku, who was immediately recognizable. Tooe launched herself straight over to the two members, who were working with fine tools at some kind of complicated engine part, and started chattering in a quick Kanddoyd patois. Dane hovered nearby, listening intently.

Rael’s first glimpse of Nunku suffused her with pity. She drew near, and saw the childish head lift on its thin neck. The contrast between head and neck made Nunku’s head seem distorted. Rael studied the thin, pale skin,

which was almost as bleached as that of the Venusian colonist, Jasper Weeks, the attenuated limbs, and the intelligent, expressive eyes. As yet she made no move to touch her gear.

"Thank you for permitting me to come up here," Rael said.

Nunku smiled a little wryly. "Tooe and Momo clamor prodigiously to adopt yon lanky crewmate into our klinti," she said, using the Kanddoyd word for nest/primary family. "But Tooe also seeketh to adopt into thy ship klinti."

Rael nodded, delighted by the idea of a ship klinti. A brief reflection made her realize that the term actually was more appropriate than not. She thought, We really are a kind of klinti, at least as I understand the word, just as this group is .

Nunku’s mouth pressed into a line and she added, "I confess, I know not yet whether she sees the dilemma."

Rael drew in a deep breath. She had not considered that aspect of things. For the crew of the Queen , the question had revolved around Tooe’s trustworthiness, and beyond that, what she could contribute. It was assumed she had no ties of any importance—which was pretty much the way any new crewmate was regarded.

"Once we resolve our difficulties here, she will have to address that," she said.

Nunku gave a little nod, and as a ripple of colored lights flickered on the console near her, she turned and regarded the complicated, unique computer system she had rigged.

Her thin fingers tapped out a code, the computer hummed briefly, and a chip appeared. Then Nunku folded her hands and faced Rael again. "For what purpose hast thou come?"

"I am a physician," Rael said, having decided in the short time she had observed Nunku to speak the truth. "I will do my best to help you, if in turn you can help me by telling me about your background and permitting me to do a diagnostic scan. The data I gather might in turn help another like you one day."

Nunku nodded again, as Rael had thought she would. "Data," she said. "Another word for it is power. Willingly. What wilt thou have first?"

"I can run the diagnostic right now, if you tell me how you got here, and what made you stay?"

"I am Terran-born, as thou hast probably surmised," Nunku said. "I think I had five years when we came here. I do not remember much about my family; over the years I have gathered bits of information which maketh me conclude that they were a mixed crew of Kanddoyd, human, and other races, and the ship was not a registered Trader, but sometimes a smuggler, operating on the fringes of the law."

Rael listened as she read the readout on her scanner. Profound endocrinological imbalances, a crazily perverse calcium-phosphorus balance, enzymes that the machine didn’t recognize—she blinked, amazed at the extent of the girl’s adaptations. Any one of these indications would normally be fatal, but together they somehow balanced into life. Rael felt tears sting her eyes at this fresh evidence of the plasticity of the human genome, and the cost of that plasticity.

"That they did exist on the edge of the law is partly proved by the fact that I cannot find anything on them in Trade records, and I have spent much time searching," Nunku continued, evidently not noticing Rael’s reaction, or choosing to ignore it. "That is, I trow, a negative proof. A positive one is the last memory I have, which was a great excitement among the adults. I didn’t understand it—I have only a bright image in my memory of my father grabbing my mother and saying, ’We got it! We got it! We’ll be able to sell it for a fortune— but we have to get away today before they find out.’ Then a great deal of activity, including the buying of stores. It was thus I was separated from my people, whilst we ran through a crowd on one of the lower concourses. My memory provideth me with my own terror at all the tall figures around me, all of them strangers. The next thing I remember is being put in one of the detention cells, against my family being found. I surmise now that can only mean that someone had discovered who I was, and what the crime was. Identification has eluded me, alas, for I have not breached the fire walls protecting the Monitor system," she concluded with a wan smile. "I could, of course, but I would probably be discovered in the process." She felt under a neat stack of printouts for a chip, then turned to Dane. "Speaking of which, here is thine access. I’ve crafted a ferret program that will burrow through the