Get Off the Unicorn (36 page)

Abu was an incredibly lithe albino who had capitalized on her genetic inheritance. She did wear remedial contacts for light sensitivity and, Helva noticed on fine vision, the girl also utilized a skin film so artfully applied that only magnification detected it.

Abu spoke with the lilt of one whose first language was pitched. The gently musical voice and her extreme grace fascinated Helva. Abu was equally entranced by Helva and the three of them chatted about new dance and art forms.

Suddenly Niall exploded back into the main lounge, carrying two long flaming skewers with bits of meat and vegetables. Behind him danced triplet girls, a dance team from Betelgeuse now the rage of Regulus City, dangerously brandishing their lighted skewers.

“Ancient earth recipe,” Niall announced. “Shish kebabs. Have 'em while they're hot. There're plenty more where these came from. Don't burn your tongue.”

Helva had wondered where he'd gone.

“Three of them?” Permut said with a rueful laugh. “No wonder he declared the galley out of bounds.”

Helva caught the implication that more than culinary arts had been practiced there.

“With
three
of them?” asked Abu, taking the same interpretation. The gleam of regret in her eyes was not completely masked by her protective lenses.

“You know Parollan, my dear.”

“Not as well as I'd like.”

Then Niall was proffering them the still smoking meats.

“Oooh, this is good,” Abu said, nibbling delicately and then rolling her eyes with appreciation. “This can't be mutton?”

“Regulan mutton!” Niall replied.

“It can't be,” protested Permut, licking his fingers and grabbing more.

“All in the marinade, all in the marinade.”

“Is that a new position?” Permut asked archly.

Niall laughed tolerantly and moved on to serve other guests, but the ambiguous ribaldry disturbed Helva.

“Do you have olfactory senses, Helva?” Abu asked. “It seems rude to be so . . . so . . . rapacious in front of you.”

“I don't smell as you do but I am able to sense fairly minute alterations in the composition of the air within and about me that would indicate odor.”

“That's not quite what Abu meant,” Permut said.

“I know but it's all I got.”

“And you can't taste either?”

“No.”

Abu's sensitive face registered dismay at this lack. “I thought you shell people could do everything we could.”

“Not . . . everything,” Permut said, and then some unuttered thought convulsed him with laughter.

Abu regarded him blankly for a moment and then with growing impatience and disgust.

“Everything comes back to sex with you, Permut.”

“Not . . . not everything,” he managed to say between gasps of laughter.

“Actually, Abu, the programming of the olfactory sensors does give me an indication of a human's reception of smells. If there's sulfur in the air, I'd know it, I assure you, as something distinctly unpleasant. As for taste, I can't miss what I haven't had,” Helva said, hoping that Permut would stop being so prurient He'd been good company up till now. “I would like to
know
how coffee tastes. Everyone seems to fancy it so above all other beverages.”

Abu laughed. “I think it smells better than it tastes. Especially if you've got roasted beans and grind them fresh,” her tone of voice dripped with gustatory pleasure.

“You know, I'd forgot that coffee is brewed from beans. I've only the container-type aboard.”

“The best beans come from Ipomena in the Alphecan sector. I've a small supply given me by an admirer that I keep for special occasions.”

“You do?” Permut asked, abruptly recovering his composure. “You do?” he repeated, sidling up to Abu and making such absurd expressions that she began to laugh. “I tell you what, Abu, purely to aid in Helva's education, I will partake of your Ipomenan brew and give her a critical opinion of the quality, aroma, flavor, savor . . .”

“Oh, you!”

Suddenly Niall's voice rang out in happy surprise. “Davo Fillaneser? But of course, twice welcome. Come on up, Davo. Helva!”

Niall's clarion greeting had effectively silenced the babble and all eyes were on the newcomer appearing from the air lock. Davo smiled and so played up his entrance, bowing with such elaborate flourishes of nonexistent cape and hat, that everyone applauded.

“Fillaneser played Beta Corvi with Helva. Only he came back,” Niall said by way of introduction, and the actor was quickly surrounded. Davo cast a humorously despairing glance toward Helva, mouthing “I want to talk to you later,” as he was borne away.

It wasn't until after Niall mendaciously declared that Railly'd imposed a one o'clock curfew on his parties and started shoving people out the hatch as quick as the lift could make the trip, that Davo had a chance to approach Helva.

“Any chance of speaking to you, Helva?”

“You mean, privily?”

Davo nodded with a mirthless smile for her Shakespearean language.

“That is, if Niall can clear the deck . . .”

“Preferably of himself as well. Or is that too much to ask?”

Circumstances, in the persons of the triplets who helped to clean up the party debris, abetted Davo's wish. Niall found himself, or so he said, obliged to be sure the girls had transport into the City.

“It is past pumpkin time for Cinderellas,” she said, and Niall commended her to Davo's company, and disappeared with his giggling trio.

“Does he mean to take on all three of them, Helva?” Davo asked.

“I'm under the impression that they've got something cooked up,” she replied, and then chuckled over her phrasing. How would Dobrinon interpret that Freudian slip? Davo guffawed, so Helva decided he'd been told about the shish kebab episode.

The actor's laughter faded though, and he took to pacing around the lounge. Helva waited. The next line was all his.

“I'd heard you'd paid off, Helva.”

“Great heavens to Betsy, does everyone in the Galaxy know that?”

“You don't know how many friends you have, Helva, who make it their business to keep track of you.”

“I'd heard you'd volunteered to go back to Beta Corvi for Dobrinon,” she said, starting her own offensive.

Davo winced. “That's when they were sending that manned test ship with the c-v drive.”

Helva laughed. “Just as well you didn't go, Davo, you'd be coming back for the next nine years.”

“That wasn't why I didn't go, Helva. I copped out at the last moment. Did Dobrinon tell you that?” Davo looked directly at her now, and she could see the excited glitter in his eyes, the tenseness of his jaw muscles. “I turned coward. I
couldn't
go through that again. As much as I wanted to find out how Kurla and Prane . . . and Chaddress were. Helva . . .” Davo's voice shook with barely contained emotion, “is it true? That you're being forced to go back?” The question tumbled out of his mouth and his tone was distraught. “How can they let you put yourself in jeopardy like that again? I mean, Helva, you have many important friends, powerful ones. All you have to do is let us know . . .”

Helva was so flabbergasted at Davo's concern, at his suggestion that she almost laughed.

“Davo, my very good friend, I am in no jeopardy.”

“Now, look, Helva,” Davo assumed a man-to-man stance, “I don't care how many circuits are being tapped, who I have to buy or suborn,
you
—”

“Davo, where are you getting this notion from? Broley?”

“Broley?” Davo's surprise suggested that the City Shell Manager was not his informant.

“No, I don't guess you'd have any contact with the City Manager.”

“I have spoken with him. He goes to all the plays,” Davo admitted, “but not this trip.”

“Well, then, where did you get this wild notion that I'm in any danger?”

“It's all over,” and Davo made an expansive gesture. “You can't
want
to go back to Beta Corvi?” His convulsive shudder was not feigned; nor was the glint of terror in his eyes.

“Truthfully, no. But it's the only way I'll find out.”

“Find out what, for the love of reason?”

“Oh, if the c-v drive works or will blow the cosmos to bits with the particular emissions, if our friends . . . exist. Take it easy, Davo,” she added gently as she saw the man working himself up to another explosion. “Let's say I'm willing to take a gamble . . . with my eyes wide open to the probabilities. Which do, after all, favor me. The stakes are high, and when you get right down to the welded seam, there's more than that c-v drive to be vetted and lost souls accounted for. Tell me, in all this wild talk, what's the gen on Niall Parollan?”

Davo looked uncomfortable for a split second, and then only hesitant. He took a sharp deep breath and regarded her frowningly.

“I tell you, Helva, Parollan had a lot to do with our debriefing when we got back here after Beta Corvi. I liked what I saw of the man then. He had real sympathy for all of us—and he was very worried about the effects of the mission on you. Get right down to it, most of his questions during his interview with me had to do with you.”

Helva fondly remembered Niall's abrasively diverting and restorative presence the night she'd come back . . . an empathy utterly shattered days later when he made known his opinion of her choice of Teron of Acthion as brawn: a well-substantiated opinion.

“What I hear about Regulus City now . . .” Davo summarized that in a long low whistle.

“Tell me, what's the betting on our length of partnership? On the success of our mission? On Railly's making CW Council? And Breslaw hitting Chief?” With each of her questions, Davo's eyes opened wider.

“Damn it, Helva, the whole tone about you and Parollan, not to mention those others, is so . . . so disgustingly commercial, so sordid, that I had to see you. What I heard doesn't jibe with the Helva I know.”

“Or the Parollan you've met.”

“Right!”

“Do you agree that people under stress react more honestly than people in a party or gossip situation?”

“Certainly.”

“So. Don't think I'm not highly flattered and touched by your concern, Davo. I am. But I think we, Niall and I, the NH-834, are a winning combination.”

“I certainly hope so, Helva. I certainly hope so.”

Amusement bubbled up in Helva. “I wish you'd read that line with more convincing sincerity, Davo.”

“I wish I felt it myself. I don't favor this part for you, Helva. And I'm not alone. Remember, gal, all you gotta do is shout.”

“Shout in an ammonia-methane atmosphere?”

“Don't tell me
you
want to play a return engagement there, Fillaneser?” Niall asked from the lock.

“No entrance cues, Helva?” asked Davo, annoyed.

“This team can't operate on two levels, Davo, not and succeed.”

The actor nodded. He extended his hand to Niall.

“I'll wish goodspeed and a safe trip home, Helva, Parollan.”

That line did have the ring of sincerity.

“You weren't long about it,” Helva said, relieved by Niall's return for several reasons she didn't care to probe.

Niall was peering out at the night, at Davo's descent, so Helva left the lock open until he gave a snort and turned back to the lounge, frowning as he surveyed it.

“No, when I got to the gate, the Yerries had been refueling so I let them take the girls on in. Besides,” he stretched and yawned mightily, “I need my beauty sleep.” He bent down to scoop up a container tucked against the end of a couch, lobbed it toward the disposal chute, dusting his bands as his shot hit dead center. “And tomorrow, we skin you, m'love. And then . . .” He rubbed his hands with anticipation as he moved toward his quarters.

“Up, up, and away?”

“Yup!”

He stripped and washed with his usual neat despatch and then lay on his bunk, hands clasped behind his head.

“That was a real good bash,” he murmured, eyes closed, a happy smile on his face. “Good night.”

“Good night, sweet prince, and may . . .”

Niall's eyes flew open and he made a mock-exasperated noise in his throat. “Will you never rid me of your Shakespeare saws? When I think of a perfectly good, well-behaved ship consorting with ribald, rowdy actors . . . I cringe.” But he yawned again and was asleep before his jaw closed.

Helva chuckled as she secured the lock, lowered all but her safety lights, and began her habitual nightly check. Suddenly it was too silent; too empty of Niall and his energy. He was sort of like having one's own private hurricane and he probably expended as much energy as the nardy c-v drive could.

Would that thing work? And what accounted for Breslaw's pessimism? Had he rechecked some factor to a lower probability? Or was it the particle emission that troubled everyone? Even if the c-v drive were feasible, the emissions could make it highly impractical in settled space, which would rule out its use as far as Helva was concerned. Unless of course they detached her to Search and Survey. But would that kind of long-distance lonely travel suit Niall Parollan?

Why had she been plagued with both Rocco and Davo today? And why had Abu asked about her two missing senses? She'd had them in the Beta Corvi envelope. Not that “coffee” would be anything tastable by a Corvikan. Did they have its equivalent, Helva wondered?

Had Niall really overcome that brawn fixation? More corrosive to her peace of mind, if ruthlessly suppressed, was her own disquieting wish to see that Asuran solido. Shell people were conditioned not to think about physical appearance. They were told that their bodies were physically stunted to fit in the shells. They knew that they were necessarily immersed in nutrient fluids, that there were masses of wires connecting the various sections of their brains to the sensors that allowed them to operate their particular vehicle or mechanisms. It was tacitly understood that a shell person was a grotesque in a civilization that could ensure physical perfection and pleasing looks.