When Papa returns, Fang's cabin is pitch black and silent as space. He shifts his vision to the infrared and finds Fang huddled on her bed, clinging to its fitted sheets. She isn't sleeping; for a moment he listens to her hiccupping breath. "Captain Fang?"

Temperature ripples across her face, first hot, then cold. "Not daughter?"



"Of course, daughter," he says, wondering about these slips. His confusion remains profound, yet he still knows that protecting Fang is his first priority after safeguarding the ship. Time to set her aright. "The ship is safe."

"It was my fault in the first place."

"Mine as well. With hindsight, we can say that we were faced with a difficult situation with little prospect for success. We will try again, learning from our -- " don't say mistake, " -- newly acquired experience."

"You're awfully delicate." Fang shifts up on an elbow, then spins her legs out, still clinging to the sheets with hands splayed like claws. Her body surface is cool everywhere -- she's still in uniform. "Is that you, Papa? Where's the fire in the belly, the blood and thunder? You're Papa Hemingway, remember."



He remembers. Parts. "You're a beautiful woman, Lena. Why don't you let your hair grow out into a fine blonde mane to match your fiery spirit?"



"Damn you, Papa." Her face flares with heat, her own dwarf nova. Is that a new thought? "I'm not you. Try as I might, I don't have that fiery spirit you ramble on about so much. But I'm not a doll, either."



He sifts through the available memories he has, false ones and real ones; they all seem more like factoids than memories. "No doll. You box, and that takes determination and heart. A willingness to take a punch. Well, you got punched."



"I'm not a real boxer. I rely on technique. I'm careful. It's just as well that Fisher and I broke up when we did. He was getting better, and I would not have liked that bastard decking me."



"Oh, Lena, you see. There's your fire!"



"Bullshit," she says, her volume low. "I am a worthless Captain. First chance to make decisions of consequence, and it's a spectacular failure. I should just leave it to Fisher."



"No, Lena, you're my Captain. Always."



"What's with you? Why aren't you calling me daughter like usual?"



"We don't know." He would not lie to her even if allowed, and he will not flee from her. "It is frightening."



She laughs at that, but the laughter quickly merges into sobs. "Papa has the fear, I have the fear, and the stink of it is all around us."



She says the words, and he knows them to be true. He is allowed fear. Fear is a useful tool for self-preservation. The real Papa Hemingway understood fear, but only found it anathema when debilitating. Like what happened to Fang on the bridge for an important split second. He should be furious with her, shouldn't he? Is he cut off from that part of himself? He should explain the problem to her...it is more than fear.



"The algorithms that would cleanse the mind are separated from the data -- the emotional memories -- that define my pseudo-character. We have a human perspective, and a short-term memory, and knowledge of primary ship operations -- those are quite redundant in my neural mesh. We're missing the older real memories, memories of our times together for instance. We don't really know who you are anymore, just as we don't know who we are, but we know who we're not. We're not a whole man anymore. We wish someone would just shoot us."



"You don't mean that. That's not the Papa I remember."



"Exactly."



It is a terrible silence that follows. He takes some consolation in the idea that his own problems have superseded hers and that she may lean on that to prompt herself back into action. She seemed effective when they saved the ship just a little while ago, but why has she remained in her cabin -- to wallow in self-pity?

He is about to ask when she violently pushes away from her bed, bounces hard off a wall, and ricochets to the door. "That's my break between rounds. There's not much for people to do on this ship, but I'll do everything I can. I'll even try to get along with Fisher. Thanks for the bell, Papa."

What is she referring to? Is he getting worse? He heard no bell.



At least it isn't another goddamned wall.

Chapter 10

The eyes are the window of the soul. -- Proverb

Eyes lie if you ever look into them for the character of a person. -- Stevie Wonder

Fang rose from her chairbeast to stand at one end of the conference room, beginning the impromptu dragon meeting. She smoothed around the creases in her whites and said, "Dr. Fisher has agreed to my request to set the agenda for this meeting. Let me proceed briskly. We have much to discuss."



In turn, Fang caught the eye of each of her crew, trying to read their hearts, but that trick rarely worked for her. Only in Fisher did she read something; the fixed pink stare that met her was as unwavering and obsessed as ever, but she took encouragement in his cooperation with the agenda.



"The Karamojo is currently stable 50 kilometers above the disk, and the ship is in no immediate danger," she began. The ship always came first. "We must decide whether to withdraw now and abort the mission, or to proceed." Fang whipped her gaze around to Fisher and held up a pointed finger to cut him off before he could interrupt. "My current assessment of the situation dictates that we proceed cautiously, and utilize the new information at our disposal. I allow that someone here might have an objection that either Papa or I have overlooked."



Fisher opened his mouth as if to speak, but closed it again and appeared to settle into thought for the moment. Good.



Devereaux sitting cross-legged on her chairbeast asked, "Well, just exactly what is our situation?"



"Tell them, Papa," Fang said. Time to show some trust in him. Time for him to earn some trust or they had no business remaining in system.



"We got hit hard, sure enough, but that was because we didn't know what was coming. The induced currents coupled to our spinal rail, and through that to my external sensor grid, and then on to a number of non-essential systems. The Karamojo was not designed to take such an electromagnetic event. The autonomous functions, like atmosphere and other life support, are only connected through microwave link and fused connects for standard safety reasons. Good thing, too. By consuming our biomass reserves, we've regrown to eighty percent capacity, and additional growth should increase that figure to over ninety percent in the next four hours. The more serious damage lies with the Higgs generators, which now suffer from a calibration problem: their parameters were reinitialized. Mobile repair restored a thirty percent capacity, but we'll need some more work before we can blast out of here at full thrust. The nanoskin, since it is more mechanical than electrical and relatively insensitive to long wavelength interference, continues to work well, keeping us cool. So we're ship-shape in most ways, and we're raring for a second shot. That was a lucky sucker punch."



Papa was starting to sound a little more like Papa, but so much still fell back onto the basic speech template. Still, it was an improvement. Fang said, "Thank you, Papa. Now, are there any remaining questions about our status or any other issues to be considered? I'd like everyone's input."



Henderson cleared his throat, then frowned. Finally he said, "I'd like to emphasize the depletion of our biomass reserves. We wound up with a lot of plain carbon, useless for anything but the nanovats. It takes time and energy to regrow sophisticated biocircuits from scratch. We cannot return to full operational status if we are hit that hard again." He kept his eyes down during his statement, then looked up at the ceiling to reiterate his final point. "We just can't take it. I can't emphasize this enough."



"So emphasized," said Fisher. "Well, it sounds like there's no problem continuing the mission, so we should get down to discussing strategy revisions."



"Not so fast, Dr. Fisher," Fang said. "That may be the case, but I think everyone should have a chance to have the floor. As I said, I'm ready to proceed. Phil?"



Stearn, sitting to her right and looking serious and responsible these days in his dark skin and solid muscles, said, "Papa's completely correct. Things are going okay. And frankly, this is a lot more fun, and a different kind of fun, than I've had in some time. I'm game."



Devereaux, next to Stearn, twirled a dreadlock around her finger, winding and unwinding. "I have some reservations," she said, "but I'm hooked. I must understand how the dragons came to be, how they live, and what they will mean to us in the future. I cannot turn my back on this puzzle now."



When it was clear that Devereaux had said her piece, Fisher said, "Yes, we proceed," and turned his pink eyes on Henderson.



The biotech rubbed his dimpled chin with a big hand. "I'd like to hear Devereaux's reservations, if I may."



Fisher sighed, nodded, and turned back to Devereaux.



Devereaux jerked back at the sudden attention, her Buddha-like composure showing cracks. "Just the perfectly obvious stuff. Even with all the data we have on the disk, it isn't easy to predict what it will do very far in advance. A big magnetic flare erupting under us could pose problems in our current state. A dwarf nova, while uncomfortable, is easily seen in advance and escaped even with our crippled wormdrive. The dragons themselves appear more formidable than we had guessed, but we have more knowledge now, and that will help. I still have a concern, rather irrational, that someone will show up and be upset with us for poaching. As I said, perfectly obvious stuff."



Everyone turned their heads back to Henderson, who had lifted his head while Devereaux was speaking, but was now looking down again. "Well, I suppose it sounds as if...as if we should go on," he finally said.



"Right," said Fisher. "Then I have some new cage designs to present." He stopped short of asking Papa to project them and said, "If I may, Captain Fang?"



Fang nodded, and they went on to discuss the new cage, how to get and keep a dragon out of the disk, how to herd a dragon into the Karamojo, and all the other practical matters they needed to think about to continue with the hunt.



As the meeting dragged on, Fang worried about how polite and cooperative Fisher seemed. But why shouldn't he be? He was getting his way now. Still she worried, but gave her worry little merit.



After all, how could far could she really trust her own judgment?