Mindship v1 0, p.1
Mindship (v1.0), page 1
22-03-2023
Mind-drive:
I stand apart from the ship in my analog web, looking down at the bail of light webbed from a network of power and energy, sparked with arrows of mental light, a hundred mental waves turning in on themselves, waves on a muddy shore, churning up soot and soil, foaming in coils of power. Central to that silent storm is the prism of the Cork’s mind-field, which seems to draw the darkness in a whirpool even as we generate it, tunneling the black richness of our emotions through the Engineer and out of the ship in a beam that shoves the Charter through the Back Region, a helix blue and white behind us.
Behind the ship are the stars. Ahead, the golden glow of hyperspace. We move through…and in.
Like a golden bird, we fly.
MINDSHIP
Gerard F. Conway
DAW BOOKS, INC.
donald a. wollhiem, publisher
1301 Avenue of the Americas
New York, N. Y. 10019
Contents
Prologue: “Valve”
Chapter One Eighth month, third day, anno Domini 3146
Chapter Two Eighth month, fourth day, anno Domini 3146
Chapter Three Eighth month, fifth day, anno Domini 3146
Chapter Four Eighth month, eighth day, anno Domini 3146
Chapter Five Eighth month, twentieth day, anno Domini 3146
Chapter Six Ninth month, second day, anno Domini 3146
Chapter Seven Ninth month, tenth day, anno Domini 3146
Chapter Eight Ninth month, twenty-ninth day, anno Domini 3146
Chapter Nine Tenth month, second day, anno Domini 3146
Chapter Ten Tenth month, fifth day, anno Domini 3146
Epilogue: ’’Sensitive”
Copyright ©, 1974, by Gerard F. Conway
All Rights Reserved.
Cover art by Kelly Freas
The portion of the book entitled Valve appeared in an altered form in Universe One, under the title of Mindship. That version copyright ©, 1971, by Terry Carr.
For my mother and father:
A brief note of thanks
First Printing, February 1974
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
PRINTED IN U.S.A
Prologue: “Valve”
We were three weeks out from Centauri when our Cork blew.
He was a thin man, as Sensitives go, quite gaunt, with lines and hints of age wrinkling the paperweight thinness of his skin; but for all of that, he was a young man, and it showed in the way he moved—easily, sliding along with that forward shove affected by men new to space, the lopsided tumble that bumps you off walls and cracks your head against low hatches, gives you a hundred bruises and cuts on your first trip out Like a fly on water spinning on gauze wings—he moved like that. He was a quiet man for a mindship Cork; usually the burden of draining the emotions of a crew makes a man want to talk, but not him. Occasionally he would smile, but when he did, the smile would rest only a moment on his lips, as though it were unsure, waiting to be blown away. I suppose if I were to chose a word to describe him, a single word, it would be young.
Like all Corks he was a Sensitive. You could see it in his hands, the way they fluttered over his lap when he sat in the lounge, the way they touched and lighted on the arms of his chair, rested on his knees, or moved on to trap themselves under his elbows. His fingers were long, tapered candles lit from within, always sallow and drained, pink at the tips where the nails used to be. When he spoke, his hands would jump and dive, winding tapestries in the smoke-stained air of the lounge where we sometimes slouched about, chatting and listening carefully to the worn tales. When he spoke, his voice was quiet and unobtrusive. When he spoke, he looked down, watching his hands. Sometimes he stared at them as though they were apart from him, flesh-tinted birds nestling in his lap. I know that look.
Three weeks out from our third port, he Hew. We were lucky to get back to Endrim. Lucky for us. His luck ran out the day he shipped aboard the Charter.
A man can’t think of himself objectively, at least that’s the way it is with me. I can’t judge my actions; it’s too easy to relax the more temperate aspects of one’s personality and take hell out on oneself for the mistakes of one’s past. Too easy. We all tend to mark ourselves as martyrs.
I was captaining the Charter when we first limped in to Endrim. Half the crew had been blown away by our last jump into the Back Region; our previous Captain had been among the first to go, and because I was his First Mate, I took us up and carried us through and brought us down and kept us Out. I did all the right things, all the smart things…and we still lost half our crew.
By the time we touched down on Endrim we were a crippled mass of mindship. Even the Engineer was on the verge of being blown. Somewhere back during the early moments of the disaster our Cork—this one an old man way past his,third ’juve, a crumpled wreck who’d managed to stick it through six runs aboard the Charter with only minor emotional adjustments; the contrast between him and the Cork we picked up on Endrim was startling—had cracked up and had begun fingering the pod controls in his bay section. Somehow he punched a lifecraft node and ejected himself into hyperspace. Never found him. At that point, we were all too busy trying to stay alive to go looking for a senile Sensitive. Perhaps we should have sent out a pod, though—after he blew, everything seemed to crumble at the edges, eating toward our middle like acid rust on a sheet of cheap tin. It was then that the Engineer began to complain of stress along the lateral line; it was then that half the crew snapped and went screaming into madness. Perhaps we should have tried to save him, after all.
A Cork is a useful thing on a mindship. Without one, crews have a tendency to dissolve in their own insanity. It’s the nature of the game: we need emotion to pass into the Back Region, and we need a Cork to keep us alive.
That’s why I made finding one first priority when we finally touched port on Endrim. Some things can’t wait on formality.
In a port, any port, whether it’s on the dark side of the Spiral or the light, you’ll find three types of districts: the pleasure center, where the less discriminating Physicals congregate; the livers—local residents only; and the com-mimes. It’s the last area you look for when you’re seeking a Sensitive.
That’s where I found the new Cork.
I was with the Cook. He pushed through the screen ahead of me, twisting around to hold back the strands and let me through. I ducked under the low hangings and came up into a wreath of sweet smoke tainted by an under odor of dust, the dry, choking flavor of packed earth. It was a basement room, and it was dark, graying near the center, where candles and oil lamps made a futile effort to relieve the gloom. I blinked against the smoke sting and glanced at the unmoving shapes outlined in the dim glow.
“Here?” I asked the Cook.
“Where else?”
“It’s your game.” Straightening, I looked around, waiting for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. Beside me the Cook shuffled about, apparently seeking a familiar face. If he could see a face. He’s told me that though he wasn’t bom on Endrim, he considers it his home; I suppose that’s because so many ex-Sensitives live there. He’d been my guide, more or less. I’d received the impression that parts of the port were as strange to him as they were to me. I hoped this wasn’t one of them.
A figure near the far wall moved, unwound into a spider shape vaguely resembling a man. The Cook moved forward and hooked an arm, beckoning the house head to him. They spoke in low tones while I settled myself against a wall latticed with narrow cracks and made a pretense of relaxing. I was tense. 1 was a new Captain and this was my first independent cruise, and my first crew choice. I was tense.
They came over to me finally, the house head moving in a slow, stooped slide-walk. Spacer. I watched him, and in the darkness I saw the left side of his face, creviced where a set of capillaries had broken. A blown Cork, one who’d snapped so far from reality the pieces were scattered like sand. His eyes found mine, he saw my expression and he smiled, a tug of his lips just slightly askew from the shape of his face.
“Not your man here, Cap’n, no, not me,” he said in a broken Sensitive’s slow tones. “Quiet boy we got, back new. Fresh one, no scars, you see, huh?” His voice was blurred by the ruined muscles in his neck.
“Let’s see him,” I said.
“Back. Wait, hold. ’Kay.”
He turned and slipped into the shadows. I glared at the Cook, but he didn’t seem to see me.
God.
Then the blown Cork was back, and behind him was another man. Correction: a boy. And just like that, with a man coming at me out of the darkness, I snapped. Not on the surface, no: underneath, so deep inside me I didn’t sense it then, or even later when it all surged out. It was then, right then, that I snapped. It was then that I made my first mistake and committed my first murder—a homicide of myself, and of this young Cork. Not tangibly. Not real so you could touch it—but real so it would be in my mind forever when I saw it for what it was.
His hands moved nervously at his sides, finally hooking the loops of his overjacket and fidgeting in and out of the leather curls. He didn’t look at me, just toward me, and he spoke softly in answer to my questions, almost too low to be heard. I tried to act the well-prepared professional.
“Name?”
He told me.
“You’re from Endrim?”
He shook his head and named a place just out from the Center.
“How’d you get out here?”
He’d shipped passage. That startled me. Passage from the Center to the rim was hardly inexpensive, and twice as expensive to return; there were many old spacers caught on the rim who’d been bora near earth, who couldn’t return to their homeworld to die. Not even a non-Company trader will take on a man after his fourth rejuve, and those spacers caught on Endrim were next to creditless. Sometimes a charter ship will give mercy passage, but not often, and when a psi ship does, the man becomes a sort of galley slave, and generally ends up working harder than he ever had in a life of spacing. For most, though, running to the rim is a one-way ticket, and Endrim is the last stop. It’s the final haul, the last jump before death—yet here was a man little more than a boy who’d shipped passage to the soul dump of the galaxy. It was odd. It was more than odd, and 1 said as much.
He shrugged, and his hands twisted in the loops of his jacket. Endrim was where he wanted to be.
“Experience?” I asked. “Contract?”
He’d been on two local runs, and had been laid off when the shuttle lost its in-system permit, something that was constantly happening with these non-Company mind-ships. No Contract with a major company, not even a civil service slot.!n effect, he was completely without experience. It would have been suicidal for me to take him on.
“Contract him,” I said to the Cook, turned to avoid the Cook’s wide-eyed stare, and pushed my way out of the commune into the cool night air of Endrim.
When we cut ourselves, we use small knives.
He was a fair Cork. In time, with experience to back his instincts, he could have been a good one. He had a natural sense of calm, a quiet manner that set one at ease, relaxing tightened muscles and soothing anxieties to a throb rather than a pain. He was a Sensitive, and he did his job. Just talking with him eased the soul.
When we were in drive he was everywhere, talking, calming, relaxing, easing: a mind among our minds, a valve for our combined tensions—a release. A Cork.
During those weeks of our first run under my command, I watched him with half attention. He always seemed to be only a few feet away, a constantly stabilizing force because of his familiarity. When I was setting a course or reviewing the flow of the mind-structure powering the ship, he was there, a lamb-soft presence that our previous Corks had never been. Where they’d been huge, powerful, and consuming, he was small, an undercurrent sewer for our frustrations. He channeled the dirt and the insanity out of our minds, keeping us, Sensitives and Physicals alike, on the tightrope between the sane and the mad.
I say us. That includes the Captain, though be is a Physical. Most of all, it includes the Captain.
I’ve heard Corks described as maternal images, psychic wombs into which the power minds of a ship crawl during stress, there to be cradled and loved. I’ve heard them likened to sewers as well, draining the filth of our souls; the poisons that power a mindship have to be sucked away, and so the Cork was the valve that cleaned us all. In a way, our young Cork was both. The only sane mind in our crew, our valve, our Cork.
I admit it: to a degree we were all insane. There can’t be a truly sane mind aboard a psi ship. Physical or not; it’s a contradiction in terms. Sane minds don’t provide the energy needed to twist space and send a ship skidding into the Back Region, where all the laws of Einsteinian reality exist slightly warped. Sane minds are passage payers, not crew. Sane minds are useless in space—with one exception, and that’s a Cork. If he blows, everything blows.
And that’s your real one-way ticket.
I didn’t see him again after that night in the commune for two weeks out from Endrim. I’d been aware of his presence, but there’s a difference between awareness and confrontation. One is nebulous, the other is stark and real. It’s an important difference. It was, for me.
I’d fixed the lines and set the degrees for the dive down the gravity well to Centauri: in the Back Region the well acts like a magnet on a mindship, providing the pull for a rim-to-Center run, so all that’s required is a vector set and a guard crew to watch for Black Holes. Going up from Centauri is another matter, however; you’re fighting all the way, riding light currents while dragging against the gravity of the galactic core. In a run Out that’s a real struggle…and it’s during a run Out that your Cork receives his greatest beating. That’s why I found him in the lounge sipping at a drink of absinthe and beer; going In he could afford to wander outside his station near the Control Room—going Out he’d have no time for socializing. For now’, he could sit there, listening and drinking, watching with a distant, passive look.
I went over.
We made small talk, untroubled talk between a Captain and one of his officers. He seemed reticent about that part of his life before he came to Endrim; in passing, when I asked him about his early days before he left the Centauri area, he became less talkative. He seemed to wind in on himself, a slight hardening of the wires in his neck—nothing definite, just a sudden withdrawal. He circumvented the entire subject with a single soft phrase, bringing the conversation around to me and my own past. Strangely, the shift didn’t strike me as abrupt. Perhaps I’d wanted to talk about myself and had only been marking time until the inevitable return inquiries began. It was friendly and shallow talk. It seemed so.
I talked about my life on my homeworld, a dustbin planet in the western end of the Ann. He listened, and his attention seemed to act as a salve, drawing out things from my past that I’d let rest for years, things of which I’d been aware, but which for some reason I’d kept buried:
Being alone during a sandstorm and crouching in a corner of cold steel while wind pelted the outside walls with a rain of dry sand; watching a brother die and being too small to help him, too young to make the proper moves; then being alone again, never wanting to be alone again, leaving the world days later, finally spacing; being where walls were still cold steel, where other winds still pelted the outside with dry sand, but where you weren’t alone, where there were other minds joining yours with theirs, and their mind with yours. Speaking of a gut need to stay inside, safe from the naked outside of vacuum and dust, to hide within a framework of cozy steel, running from space into space. I told him about a box I’d seen once that opened into another box, which flowered to reveal a third box, each layer peeling away in turn, until there was nothing left but a final cube, which couldn’t be opened. In languid tones 1 told him all of this, and at the time I thought it was all idle conversation, talk between a Captain and one of his men.
I see now 1 wanted him to understand why I had to kill him.
He listened, and his hands danced at the ends of his arms, alien hands with separate lives. Or not so separate.
I didn’t ask him about himself again. It seemed distant and relatively unimportant.
We talked, and after a while, I left.
We made the run into Centauri under the line. We’d charted most of the space assigned to us when the Charter had left the Demios Base four months earlier under a different Captain and a partially different crew. Now it was time for a trade run, and they told us we’d have to pick up our cargo on Endrim, a shipment of absinthe from the factories there, to the colonies along the eastern end of the Spiral Arm. But first, there were two more runs in the center of the Spiral. The first took us across the galactic plane: five weeks without incident off ship, and only one incident on.
The Cook pointed it out. He was a bulky man, the Cook, short and graying and heavy around the jaw where the webbing of broken capillaries cupped his chin, but even so, he was a perceptive man. Before the accident that made him a Physical, he’d been one of the best Corks under Contract. I’d just left Control when he approached and plucked at my side.
