Panille knew that once Ship had been sleek and trim, a projectile shape with three slim wings at the midpoint. The wings had dipped backward to form a landing tripod. That sleek shape lay hidden now within the confusion of the eons. It was called "the core" and you caught occasional glimpses of it in the passage...thick wall with an airtight hatch, a stretch of metallic surface with ports which opened onto the blank barriers of new construction.
Internally, Ship was equally confusing. Sensor eyes showed him the stacks of dormant life in the hybernation bays. At his request, Ship displayed the locator coordinates, but they were meaningless to him. Numbers and glyphs. He followed the swift movements of robox units down passages where there was no air and out onto Ship's external skin. There, in the shadows of the random extrusions, he watched the business of repairs and alterations, even the beginnings of new construction.
Panille had watched his fellow Shipmen at their work, feeling fascinated and faintly guilty. A secret spy intruding on privacy. Two men had wrestled a large tubular container into a loading bay for shuttle transshipment down to Pandora. And Panille had felt that he had no right to watch this without the two men knowing it.
When the tour was over, he had sat back disappointed. It occurred to him then that Ship intruded this way all the time. Nothing any Shipman did could be hidden from Ship. This realization had sparked a momentary resentment which was followed immediately by amusement.
I am in Ship and of Ship and, in a deeper sense, I am Ship.
"Kerro!"
The sudden voice from the com-console beside his holo focus startled him. How had she found him here?
"Yes, Hali?"
"Where are you?"
Ahhh, she had not found him. A search program had found him.
"I'm studying," he said.
"Can you walk with me for a while? I'm really wound up."
"Where?"
"How about the arboretum near the cedars?"
"Give me a few minutes to finish up here and meet you."
"I'm not bothering you, am I?"
He noted the diffidence in her tone.
"No, I need a break."
"See you outside of Records."
He heard the click of her signoff and stood a blink staring at the console.
How did she know I was studying in the Records section?
A search program keyed to his person would not report his location.
Am I that predictable?
He picked up his notecase and recorder and stepped through the concealed hatch. He sealed it and slipped down through the software storage area to the nearest passage. Hali Ekel stood in the passageway beside the hatch waiting for him. She waved a hand, all nonchalance.
"Hi."
Most of his mind was still back in the study. He blinked at her foolishly, mindful as usual of the sheer beauty of Hali Ekel. At times like this - meeting suddenly, unexpectedly in some passage - she often stunned him.
The clinical sterility of the ever-present pribox at her hip never distanced them. She was a med-tech, full time, and he understood that life and survival were her business.
The secret darkness of her eyes, her thick black hair, the lustrous brown warmth of her skin always made him lean toward her slightly or face her way in a crowded room. They were from the same bloodlines, the Nesian Nations, selected for strength, survival sense and their easy affinity with the highways of the stars. Many mistook them for brother and sister, a mistake amplified by the fact that true siblings had not existed shipside in living memory. Some siblings slept on in hyb, but none walked together.
Notes toward a poem flashed behind his eyes, another of the many she brought to his mind, that he kept to himself.
Oh dark and magnificent star
What little light I have, take.
Weave those supple fingers into mine.
Feel the flow!
Before he could think of putting this into his recorder, it occurred to him that she should not be here so fast. There were no nearby call stations.
"Where were you when you called me?"
"Medical."
He glanced up the passage. Medical was at least ten minutes away.
"But how did yo...."
"Keyed the whole conversation on a ten-minute delay."
"Bu...."
"See how standard you are on com? I can tape my whole side of a conversation, with you and get it right down the line."
"But th...." He nodded at the hatch into software storage.
"Oh, that's where you always are when nobody can find you - somewhere in there." She pointed to the storage area.
"Hmmm." He took her hand and they headed out toward the west shell.
"Why so thoughtful?" she asked. "I thought you'd be amused, surprise.... laugh, or something."
"I'm sorry. Lately it's bothered me when I do that. Never take time for people, never seem to have the flair fo.... the right word at the right time."
"A pretty strong self-indictment for a poet."
"It's much easier to order characters on a page or a holo than it is to order one's life. 'One's life'! Why do I talk that way?"
She slipped an arm around his waist and hugged him as they walked. He smiled. Presently, they emerged into the Dome of Trees. It was dayside, the sunglow of Rega muted through the screening filters. All the greens came with soothing blue undertones. Kerro took a deep breath of the oxygenated air. He heard birds twittering behind a sonabarrier off in heavier bushes to the left. Other couples could be seen far down through the trees. This was a favorite trysting place.