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Dig your stubborn heels

Fir?

- Kerro Panille, The Collected Poe on Pandoran geology and switched off his holo It ell past the hour of er Ship’s air tasted stale in the tiny teaching cubby and this surprised him until he realized he had sealed off the secret hatch into this place, leaving only the floor vent I’ve been sitting on the floor vent

This a the lessons of the holo Drea in his iht disappoint hi in his min and no novice to the disappointments of reality

At such times he felt much older than his twenty annos And he looked for reassurance in a shiny surface to reflect his own features He found a ses of his own hand when entering this place

Yes - his dark skin retained the smoothness of youth and the darker beard curled with its usual vigor around his enerous mouth And the nose was a pirate’s nose Not many Shipmen even knew there had ever been such people as pirates

His eyes appearedthat

Ship did that to me N He shook his head Honesty could not be evaded The special thing Ship and I have between us - that made my eyes look old

There were realities within realities This thing thatbeneath every surface like a child pawing through pages of glyphs Even when reality disappointed, he had to seek it

The power of disappointnized that power as distinct froroup, rethink, react It forced him to listen to himself as he listened to others

Kerro knehat ht about him

They were convinced he could hear every conversation in a crowded rooesture or inflection escaped him There were times when that was true, but he kept to himself his conclusions about such observations Thus, feere offended by his attentions No one could find a better audience than Kerro Panille All he wanted was to listen, to learn, to make order out of it in his poems

It was order that mattered - beautiful order created out of the deepest inspiration Ye he had to ade of infinite disorder He had asked Ship to show its shape to him once, a whimsical request which he had half expected to be refused But Ship had responded by taking hih the eyes of the robox repair units and even through the eyes of shuttles flitting between Ship and Pandora

Externally, Ship was led in space like wings or fins Lights glittered within thelimpses of people at work behind the open shutters of the ports Hydroponics gardens, Ship had explained

Ship stretched aled and writhed throughout that length with fragile shapes which gave no clue to their purposes Shuttles landed and were dispatched fro randomly outward The hydroponics fans were stacked one upon another, built outward fro from mutated spores

Panille knew that once Ship had been sleek and tris at thetripod That sleek shape lay hidden noithin the confusion of the eons It was called "the core" and you caught occasional gliht 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 lyphs He followed the swift es 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 Shipuilty A secret spy intruding on privacy Twobay for shuttle transshipht to watch this without the twoit

When the tour was over, he had sat back disappointed It occurred to hi 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 hira," he said

"Can you ith 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 andyou, 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 knoas 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 tie - 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 broarhtly or face her way in a crowded room They were froth, survival sense and their easy affinity with the highways of the stars Many mistook them for brother and sister, a s had not existed shipside in living ether

Notes toward a poeht to his nificent 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 lanced 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 coet 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 - soe area

"Hmmm" He took her hand and they headed out toward the west shell