"All right," he said, when he sat down again. "What about you?"
What about her? She had virtually accepted him as her brawn, hadn't she? And hadn't he sworn himself into her service, like some kind of medieval knight?
"All right," she replied. "I, Hypatia One-Oh-Three-Three, do solemnly swear to take Alexander Joli-Chanteu into my service, to share with him my search for the EsKay homeworld, and to share with him those rewards both material and immaterial that come our way in this search. I pledge to keep him as my brawn unless we both agree mutually to sever the contract I swear it by, by Theodore Edward Bear."
He grinned, so wide and infectiously, that she wished she could return it. "I guess we're a team, then," she said.
"Then here, "he lifted an invisible glass, "is to our joint career. May it be as long and fruitful as the Cades."
He pretended to drink, then to smash the invisible glass in an invisible fireplace, little guessing Hypatia's silence was due entirely to frozen shock. The Cades? How could he-
But before she vocalized anything, she suddenly realized that he could not possibly have known who and what she really was.
The literature on the Cades would never have mentioned their paralyzed daughter, nor the tragedy that caused her paralysis. That simply wasn't done in academic circles, a world in which only facts and speculations existed, and not sordid details of private lives. The Cades weren't stellar personalities, the kind people made docudramas out of. There was no way he could have known about Hypatia Cade.
And once someone went into the shell-person program, their last name was buried in a web of eyes-only and fail-safes, to ensure that their background remained private. It was better that way, easier to adjust to being shelled. The unscrupulous supervisor could take advantage of a shell-person's background for manipulation, and there were other problems as well. Brainships were, as Professor Brogen had pointed out, valuable commodities. So were their cargoes. The ugly possibilities of using familial hostages or family pressures against a brainship were very real. Or using family ties to lure a ship into ambush.
But there was always the option for the shell-person to tell trusted friends about who they were. Trusted friends and brawns.
She hesitated for a moment, as he saluted Ted. Should she tell him about herself and avoid a painful gaffe in the future?
No. No, I have to learn to live with it, if we're going to keep chasing the EsKays. If he doesn't say anything, someone else will. Mum and Dad may have soured on the EsKay project because of me, but their names are still linked with it. And besides, it doesn't matter. The EsKays are mine, now. And I'm not a Cade anymore, even if I do find the homeworld. I won't be listed in the literature as Hypatia Cade, but as Hypatia One-Oh-Three-Three. A brainship. Part of the AH team.
She realized what their team designation looked like.
"Do you realize that together our initials are..."
"Ah?" he said, pronouncing it like the word. "Actually, I did, right off. I thought it was a good omen. Not quite 'eureka', but close enough!"
"Hmm," she replied. "It sounds like something a professor says when he thinks you're full of lint but he can't come up with a refutation!"
"You have no romance in your soul," he chided mockingly. "And speaking of romance, what time is it?"
"Four thirty-two and twenty-seven point five nine seconds," she replied instantly. "In the morning, of course."
"Egads," he said, and shuddered. "Oh, dark hundred. Let this be the measure of my devotion, my lady. I, who never see the sun rise if I can help it, actually got up at four in the morning to talk to you."
"Devotion, indeed," she replied with a laugh. "All right, Alex. I give in. You are hereby officially my brawn. I'm Tia, by the way, not Hypatia, not to you. But you'd better sneak back to your dormitory and pretend to be surprised when they tell you I picked you, or we'll both be in trouble."
"Your wish, dearest Tia, is my command," he said, rising and bowing. "Hopefully I can get past the gate guard going out as easily as I got past going in."
"Don't get caught," she warned him. "I can't bail you out, not officially, and not yet. Right now, as my supervisor told me so succinctly, I am an expensive drain on Institute finances."
He saluted her column and trotted down the stair, ignoring the lift once again.
Well, at least he'll keep in shape.
She watched him as long as she could, but other ships and equipment intervened. It occurred to her then that she could listen in on the spaceport security net for bulletins about an intruder.