Диана Дуэйн - Nightfall_at_Algemron

"Someone died and left it to me," Helm said, grinned, and narrowed his eyes harder.
Gabriel started to open his mouth, then thought better of it. There was no telling under what circumstances the "someone" had died, and possibly this was something Helm preferred left behind him. Helm had been good enough about believing Gabriel's protestations of innocence, no matter how unlikely they seemed. This seemed like a good time to return the favor.
"Look," Helm said. "Kid, you're into something here, you and your magic pebble. I don't know what's going on, exactly, but we were all at Danwell together, and I know the kind of results your hunches produce when you let them run. If you think you need to go to Algemron, I'd bet that it'll be worthwhile, if only in terms of how interesting things are going to get. I'd bet serious money that they'll get interesting enough for you to need some extra guns to back you up. So I'm in. I'll find a way to cover my expenses and have a good time, too." He turned to Delde Sota. "Doctor? You want to sit this dance out? Your choice. I can arrange reliable transport back to Iphus before we head out, if you like."
Delde Sota gave him a cool look, though it was an amused one. "Assessment: chivalry not yet dead. Professional assessment: unwise to allow this venture to proceed without adequate medical advice available. And other areas of expertise."
Gabriel cleared his throat, which felt oddly tight. "Angela, you don't—"
"If you think you're going to invite me out of this little venture," she said dryly, "think again. The past couple of months have been the most interesting that I've had in a long time."
"Maybe so," Gabriel said, "but look, your ship is a family venture. Taking Lalique into harm's way might—"
Angela tilted her head to one side and said, "For insurance purposes, title vests in whoever's piloting her at the time. Believe me, I've read the fine print in the contract. Mine is a private vessel. If I choose to travel with you to Algemron, and they try to interfere with me, I'll sic the Concord on them. The place may be hazardous, but the rule of law hasn't broken down entirely out that way. Otherwise there would be no infotraders going there. Or am I wrong?"
She was right, a situation that annoyed Gabriel considerably. There was a particular smug look she got at such times. "Grawl?"
"I am a poetess and a chronicler of my times," the weren said, ruffling her forearm fur idly with one claw, "and it would look ill should I opt out of a venture merely because fangs may here and there be shown. Let us therefore lay our plans."
Gabriel looked over at Enda.
"It is as I have said to you before," she said. "I will be three hundred in a decade or so, and there are many places I have not been. Algemron, I must admit, is one of them." Enda shrugged gracefully.
Gabriel breathed out. "All right."
"So let's go, then," Helm said. "The sooner the better, it sounds like."
"I will query the drivesat for traffic destined for Algemron," Enda said. "There should be some, but not so much that it will delay our departure by more than half an hour or so."
Helm got up to go do a weapons check somewhere else in his ship. "Okay," Angela said, "flash us when you're ready to go." The connection from Lalique faded out.
Enda went back to the main infotrading console to start the business of picking up a load of data from the drivesat. Gabriel started to get up. "One moment," sad Delde Sota. "Professional requirement: put arm in display, please."
Gabriel blinked and put the arm that had his medical chip embedded in it into the control display. The end of Delde Sota's braid went out of sight of the pickup. A vague tickling sensation started in the skin around the chip.
He glanced at the doctor with slight concern. That long, high-cheekboned face was more than usually thoughtful.
"Any big changes?" Gabriel asked quietly.
"Corrected assessment: what else but big changes," Delde Sota said, more quietly still. Gabriel was rather astonished by the look of concern in her eyes. Delde Sota was a very managing type, both of her own emotions and of situations in general. It was not usual to see her seeming out of depth.
"How?" Gabriel said. "I haven't started to sprout toadstools yet. Or horns and batwings, either."
"Might be preferable," said the doctor. "Could suggest interventions for those." She breathed out, a concerned hiss of sound. "Systemic changes, shifts in microchemistry, endocrinal balances, neurochemistry. here a molecule, there a molecule; a bond breaks, another one fuses in a new way. the implications are disquieting."
"We both know I've been changing," Gabriel said, "but you said there was no physical engine for the changes. It's not as if I'd been hardwired or anything."
"Hardwiring too could be dealt with," Delde Sota said. "At least some chance of selectivity there, of personal choice, or of putting it back the way you found it if you don't like the way things have turned out. But who chooses what happens to you now? Where are these decisions being made, and by what instrumentality? Internal? External? Combination of both by way of implanted suggestion?" She shook her head. "Diagnosis: no sign of such, and hard enough to get you to take a suggestion anyway, even not implanted. Molecular engine? No sign of such. Reprogramming of DNA? No sign of that either. Changes are coming out of nowhere. Going—"
"Nowhere, maybe," Gabriel said.
She looked at him with the expression of someone willing to humor a crazy person, but only so far. "Challenge: tell me again that changes of such subtlety, so perfectly tailored to you, are happening accidentally. Have various bridges to sell you, if you believe that."
Gabriel looked at her slightly cockeyed. "Why would you want to sell me bridges?"
Delde Sota gave him an exasperated look. "Waste of good idiom. Gabriel, neurochemical changes alone suggest purpose. Careful phasing of neuropeptide sequences into ancillaria, concealed myelin restructuring strategies—"
"I can't feel those," Gabriel said. "Even if I did, I still wouldn't know what they meant. I'd sooner know
why my hair's gone so white."
"Assessment: archaeotypically hominid-masculine response," Delde Sota said, flipping her braid in the air in an I-give-up gesture. "Follicular obsession. Opinion: only fortunate the perseveration does not concern iphyphallocointrinism." She rolled her eyes as she said this, and Gabriel tried hard to fix the last word in his mind so that he could look it up later. "Warning: more important things to be concerned about. Idiomatic description: your body is becoming less your own and more something else's." She paused. "Incorrect. Someone else's."
"As long as it's still mine," Gabriel said.
"Precisely the problem," Delde Sota said, "since the 'someone else' in question is you. Alert: mind/body is a spectrum, not a dichotomy! Shift one part, other parts shift as well. Physical affects mental as profoundly as mental/physical." She looked at him narrowly. "Example: rather odd events just now on Danwell. Alien machine acting as mind/body extension. Conjecture: unaffected?"
Gabriel kept quiet for a moment and thought about that. The strange dreams he had started having before Danwell had not stopped, though their emphasis had changed. Since then, he had been feeling. well, not exactly tired, not physically anyway, but as if he had overextended himself somehow. At least he had been feeling that way for the first few days after that last battle. The feeling had gone away. Now he was beginning to wonder whether it had done so too quickly.
"No," Gabriel said, "I don't think so."
Delde Sota let out another long breath and said, "Statement: remiss of me to leave client unsupervised during period of unpredictable change. Addendum: if toadstools do occur, would not like to lose chance to publish."
Gabriel gave her the driest look he could. "Ambulance chaser."
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