"Developing? Oh, I got it. A kid, or a fetus, provided it could cross the placental barrier." He shivered, and his expression was very troubled. "Brr, that's a really nasty one."
"Verily, White Knight." She decided not to elaborate on it. Maybe later. To let him know I'm not only out for fortune and glory. "I just wanted you to be prepared when we got there, which we will in, four days, sixteen hours, and thirty-five minutes. Not bad, for an old-fashioned FTL drive, I'd say." She'd eliminated the precise measurements that some of the other shell-persons used with their brawns in the first week, except when she was speaking to another shell-person, of course. Alex didn't need that kind of precision, most of the time; when he did, he asked her for it. She had worried at first that she might be getting sloppy.
No, I'm just accommodating myself to his world. I don't mind. And when he needs precision, he lets me know in advance.
"Well, let me see if I can think of some non-lethal reasons for the dig losing communications." He grinned. "How about, 'the dinosaur ate my transmitter'?"
"Cute." Now that their acceleration had smoothed and they were out of the atmosphere, she sent servos snooping into his cabin, as was her habit whenever a week or so went by, and he was at his station, giving her non-invasive access. "Alex, don't you ever pick up your clothes?"
"Sometimes. Not when I'm sent hauling my behind up the stairs with my tail on fire and a directive from CS ordering me to report back to my ship immediately." He shrugged, completely unrepentant. "I wouldn't even have changed my clothes if that officious b- "
"Alex," she warned. "I'm recording, I have to. Regulations." Ever since the debacle involving the Nyota Five, all central cabin functions were recorded, whenever there was a softperson, even if only a brawn, present. That was regulation even on AI drones. The regs had been written for AI drones, in fact; and CS administration had decided that there was no reason to rewrite them for brainships, and every reason why they shouldn't. This way no one could claim 'discrimination', or worse, 'entrapment'.
"If that officious bully hadn't insisted I change to uniform before lifting." He shook his head. "As if wearing a uniform was going to make any difference in how well you handled the lift. Which was, as always, excellent."
"Thank you." She debated chiding him on his untidy nature and decided against it. It hadn't made any difference before, it probably wouldn't now. She just had the servos pick up the tunic and trousers, wincing at the ultra-neon purple that was currently in vogue, and deposited them in the laundry receptacle.
And I'll probably have to put them away when they're clean, too. No wonder they wanted him to change. Hmm. Wonder if I dare 'lose' them? Or have a dreadful accident that dyes them a nice sober plum?
That was a thought to tuck away for later. "Getting back to the dinosaur, com equipment breaks, and even a Class Three dig can end up with old equipment. If the only fellow on the dig qualified to fix it happens to be laid up with broken bones, in case you hadn't noticed, archeologists fall down shafts and off cliffs a lot, or double-pneumonia."
"Good point." He finished his 'housekeeping chores' with a flourish and settled back in his chair. "Say, Tia, they're all professorial types. Do they ever just get so excited they forget to transmit?"
"Brace yourself for FTL." The transition to FTL was nowhere near as distressing to softpersons as the dive into a Singularity, but it required some warning. Alex gripped the arms of the seat, and closed his eyes, as she made the jump into hyperspace.
She never experienced more than a brief shiver, like ducking into a freezing-cold shower, but Alex always looked a little green during transition. Fortunately, he had no trouble in hyper itself.
And if I can ever afford a Singularity Drive, his records say he takes those transitions pretty well.
Well, right now, that was little more than a dream. She picked up the conversation where it had left off. "That has happened on Class One digs and even Class Two, but usually somebody realizes the report hasn't been made after a while when you're dealing with a big dig. Besides, logging reports constitutes publication, and grad students need all the publication they can get. Still, if they just uncovered the equivalent of Tutankhamen's tomb, they might all be so excited, and busy documenting finds and putting them into safe storage, that they've forgotten the rest of the universe exists."
He swallowed hard, controlling his nausea. It generally seemed to take his stomach a couple of minutes to settle down. Maybe the reason it doesn't hit me is because there's no sensory nerves to my stomach anymore.
But that only brought back unpleasant memories; she ruthlessly shunted the thought aside.
"So." he said finally, as his color began to return. "Tell me why you aren't in a panic because they haven't answered."
"Artifact thieves would probably have been spotted, there aren't any natives to revolt, and disease usually takes long enough to set in that somebody would have called for help," she said. "And that's why CS wasn't particularly worried, and why they kept countermanding the Institute's orders. But either this expedition has been out of touch for so long that even they think there's something wrong, or they've got some information they didn't give us. So we're going in."
"And we find out when we get there," Alex finished; and there wasn't a trace of a smile anywhere on his face.
Tia brought them out of hyper with a deft touch that rattled Alex's insides as little as possible. Once in orbit, she sent down a signal that should activate the team's transmitter if there was anything there to activate. As she had told Alex several days ago, com systems broke. She was fully expecting to get no echo back.
Instead, -
You are linked to Excavation Team Que-Zee-Five-Five-Seven. The beacon's automatic response came instantly, in electronic mode. Then came the open carrier wave.
"Alex, I think we have a problem," she said, carefully.