Nightflyers and Other Stories. Джордж Р. Р. Мартин

aware?”

      “A little,” she said, “but I think I can understand it.”

      “I watched you copulating.”

      She smiled. “Ah,” she said, “I’m good at it.”

      “I wouldn’t know,” Royd said. “You’re good to watch.”

      Silence. She tried not to hear the steady, faint dripping off to her right. “Yes,” she said after a long hesitation.

      “Yes? What?”

      “Yes, Royd,” she said, “I would probably sex with you if it were possible.”

      “How did you know what I was thinking?” Royd’s voice was suddenly frightened, full of anxiety and something close to fear.

      “Easy,” Melantha said, startled. “I’m an improved model. It wasn’t so difficult to figure out. I told you, remember? I’m three moves ahead of you.”

      “You’re not a telepath, are you?”

      “No,” Melantha said. “No.”

      Royd considered that for a long time. “I believe I’m reassured,” he said at last.

      “Good,” she said.

      “Melantha,” he added, “one thing. Sometimes it is not wise to be too many moves ahead. Do you understand?”

      “Oh? No, not really. You frighten me. Now reassure me. Your turn, captain Royd.”

      “Of what?”

      “What happened in here? Really?”

      Royd said nothing.

      “I think you know something,” Melantha said. “You gave up your secret to stop us from injecting Lasamer with esperon. Even after your secret was forfeit, you ordered us not to go ahead. Why?”

      “Esperon is a dangerous drug,” Royd said.

      “More than that, captain,” Melantha said. “You’re evading. What killed Thale Lasamer? Or is it who?”

      “I didn’t.”

      “One of us? The volcryn?”

      Royd said nothing.

      “Is there an alien aboard your ship, captain?”

      Silence.

      “Are we in danger? Am I in danger, captain? I’m not afraid. Does that make me a fool?”

      “I like people,” Royd said at last. “When I can stand it, I like to have passengers. I watch them, yes. It’s not so terrible. I like you and Karoly especially. I won’t let anything happen to you.”

      “What might happen?”

      Royd said nothing.

      “And what about the others, Royd? Christopheris and Northwind, Dannel and Lindran, Lommie Thorne? Are you taking care of them, too? Or only Karoly and I?”

      No reply.

      “You’re not very talkative tonight,” Melantha observed.

      “I’m under strain,” his voice replied. “And certain things you are safer not to know. Go to bed, Melantha Jhirl. We’ve talked long enough.”

      “All right, captain,” she said. She smiled at the ghost and lifted her hand. His own rose to meet it. Warm dark flesh and pale radiance brushed, melded, were one. Melantha Jhirl turned to go. It was not until she was out in the corridor, safe in the light once more, that she began to tremble.

      False midnight.

      The talks had broken up, and one by one the academicians had gone to bed. Even Karoly d’Branin had retired, his appetite for chocolate quelled by his memories of the lounge.

      The linguists had made violent, noisy love before giving themselves up to sleep, as if to reaffirm their life in the face of Thale Lasamer’s grisly death. Rojan Christopheris had listened to music. But now they were all still.

      The Nightflyer was filled with silence.

      In the darkness of the largest cargo hold, three sleepwebs hung side by side. Melantha Jhirl twisted occasionally in her sleep, her face feverish, as if in the grip of some nightmare. Alys Northwind lay flat on her back, snoring loudly, a reassuring wheeze of noise from her solid, meaty chest.

      Lommie Thorne lay awake, thinking.

      Finally she rose and dropped to the floor, nude, quiet, light and careful as a cat. She pulled on a tight pair of pants, slipped a wide-sleeved shirt of black metallic cloth over her head, belted it with a silver chain, shook out her short hair. She did not don her boots. Barefoot was quieter. Her feet were small and soft, with no trace of callous.

      She moved to the middle sleepweb and shook Alys Northwind by her shoulder. The snoring stopped abruptly. “Huh?” the xenotech said. She grunted in annoyance.

      “Come,” whispered Lommie Thorne. She beckoned.

      Northwind got heavily to her feet, blinking, and followed the cyberneticist through the door, out into the corridor. She’d been sleeping in her jumpsuit, its seam open nearly to her crotch. She frowned and sealed it. “What the hell,” she muttered. She was disarrayed and unhappy.

      “There’s a way to find out if Royd’s story was true,” Lommie Thorne said carefully. “Melantha won’t like it, though. Are you game to try?”

      “What?” Northwind asked. Her face betrayed her interest.

      “Come,” the cyberneticist said.

      They moved silently through the ship, to the computer room. The system was up, but dormant. They entered quietly; all empty. Currents of light ran silkily down crystalline channels in the data grids, meeting, joining, splitting apart again; rivers of wan multi-hued radiance crisscrossing a black landscape. The chamber was dim, the only noise a buzz at the edge of human hearing, until Lommie Thorne moved through it, touching keys, tripping switches, directing the silent luminescent currents. Bit by bit the machine woke.

      “What are you doing?” Alys Northwind said.

      “Karoly told me to tie in our system with the ship,” Lommie Thorne replied as she worked. “I was told Royd wanted to study the volcryn data. Fine, I did it. Do you understand what that means?” Her shirt whispered in soft metallic tones when she moved.

      Eagerness broke across the flat features of xenotech Alys Northwind. “The two systems are tied together!”

      “Exactly. So Royd can find out about the volcryn, and we can find out about Royd.” She frowned. “I wish I knew more about the Nightflyer’s hardware, but I think I can feel my way through. This is a pretty sophisticated system d’Branin requisitioned.”

      “Can you take over from Eris?”

      “Take over?” Lommie sounded puzzled. “You been drinking again, Alys?”

      “No, I’m serious. Use your system to break into the ship’s control, overwhelm Eris, countermand his orders, make the Nightflyer respond to us, down here. Wouldn’t you feel safer if we were in control?”

      “Maybe,” the cyberneticist said doubtfully. “I could try, but why do that?”

      “Just in case. We don’t have to use the capacity. Just so we have it, if an emergency arises.”

      Lommie Thorne shrugged. “Emergencies and gas giants. I only want to put my mind at rest about Royd, whether he had anything to do with killing Lasamer.” She moved over to a readout panel, where a half-dozen meter-square viewscreens curved around a console, and brought one of them to life. Long fingers ghosted through holographic keys that appeared and disappeared as she used them, the keyboard changing shape again and yet again. The cyberneticist’s pretty face grew thoughtful and serious. “We’re in,” she said. Characters began to flow across a viewscreen, red flickerings in glassy black depths. On a second screen, a schematic of the Nightflyer appeared, revolved, halved; its spheres shifted size and perspective