To have a warp drive in her bowels! To soar when she'd been forced to plod in a plebeian fashion. And the hell with Rocco's "if"… although the if was a valid consideration. Still, she trusted the Corviki: she'd been a Corviki.

"Look, Rocco, that drive is worth a great deal of hassling and stress. Niall knows it. I know it."

"Why?"

"The cycle-variant is faster than light drive, it's warp. By being able to stabilize an unstable isotope at just the moment it is releasing its tremendous quantity of energy, the cycle-variant drive captures all that energy because the isotope doesn't dwindle downscale to a useless half-life. It remains at the constant highenergy peak. That output is controlled in its cycle of peak energy, and the rate of thrust—the speed of the ship powered that way—is determined by the ratio of cycles used at any given time. True, you can't lift offplanet on c-v drive, and a ship has to be structurally reinforced."

"And that odd trail of particles?" Rocco asked sardonically. "Those unknown thingies that have thrown communications haywire, loused up astrogational equipment, not to mention the solar phenomena recorded in the systems through which that test ship ran?"

Helva was silent. She was less certain of how the Beta Corviki could cope with those emissions. Unless there'd been a simple perversion of the data?

"Then there's the old philosophical question: Is this trip really necessary? Is man ready for this sort of progress?"

"Rocco! I'd thought better of you." Helva was surprised as well as scornful. " 'If man were meant to fly, he'd've been given wings.' "

Rocco regarded Helva with great tolerance and some sadness. "Helva, in my job, I become painfully aware that some progress costs too much in terms of human adjustment, or emotional, psychological, or even physiological stress."

"On the pro side, look at the exploration potential for a hundred different minorities."

Rocco sighed. "I suppose we're committed to progress at any cost. Onward and upward for bigger, better, faster, smaller, tougher. However, back to my original topic, your coercion."

"There isn't any, Rocco."

"Oh? Have you any idea, Helva, how many circuits lead into this?"

"I know of a few, but I think you're going to tell me."

"Setting aside your understandable yearning to be the fastest virgin in the Galaxy—and you'll need the speed with Parollan aboard…"

"Tsk, tsk, jealous?"

"Or Parollan's wish to prove himself a better brawn than the prototype, we have dear Chief Railly, all set for that jump onto Central Worlds Council."

"Is that why he's been on our backs like a leech?"

"You didn't know? Tsk! Tsk on you, Helva. Yesiree ma'am! Since the civilian branch has blown it with their manned ship, think of all the glory accruing to one Chief Railly for getting the drive approved, of getting you, the very valuable and very well known 834 to extend her contract, thanks to his masterful handling of the negotiations."

Helva made a rude noise. "Parollan masterminded it."

"Undoubtedly he did, but Railly gets the official credit. Not only does Railly have a finger in your pie to be gold-plated; Dobrinon has first whack at the biggest Xeno plum in psychological history; Breslaw is frankly starry-eyed with visions of commanding the warp-drive squadrons."

"Rocco? What's in it for you?"

"Me?" Rocco made his eyes innocently wide.

"I'd've thought you'd be flogging me, too, to rescue the four I left behind me. —Oh, so that's it. Yes, they would be classed as mutant minorities."

"That's the kindest designation." Rocco cleared his throat.

"Yes, there was a lot of unfavorable publicity about them. I'd've thought the news value long since exhausted."

"It wasn't so much publicity, Helva," said Rocco, again biting the corner of his lip thoughtfully. One booted toe swung up and down. "No, society just doesn't like its members opting out of its grasp, particularly into a total alien form."

"Not to mention leaving their bodies behind." Helva had always wondered what had happened to the empty husks of Kuria Ster, Solar Prane, Chaddress of Turo, and… Ansra Colmer. But not so much that she could bring herself to ask. When she and the rest of the dramatic troupe had presented Romeo and Juliet to the Beta Corvi—in exchange for the stabilization of isotopes—they had had to use "envelopes" suitable to the methane-ammonia atmosphere of the planet. A timer had been rigged in the transfer helmets to insure that that consciousness returned to its proper environment. After the final performance, four people had not returned and were encapsuled in the Beta Corvi envelope. For very good and understandable reasons, or so Xenologist Dobrinon would like her to believe.

"There has been considerable pressure, you know," Rocco was saying, "on both SPRIM and Double M to investigate their defection/emigration/temptation…" He shrugged at the euphemisms employed. "Or at least to bring back conclusive evidence that they are happy in their new lives."

"I know two who are—three. Solar Prane has a new body; Kuria couldn't care less about hers so long as it was near his; Chaddress had nothing to look forward to in retirement, and Ansra Colmer…"

Rocco eyed Helva keenly, expectantly. "And Ansra Colmer…"

"Oh, the Corviki knew how to handle her."

"Hmmm."

"But aren't you slightly in conflict with yourself, Rocco? I mean, you class shell people as mutant minorities, though strictly speaking I'm a cyborg—"

"Yes, Helva," Rocco sounded purposefully pathetic, "the boot does pinch." His foot in fact was swinging, which was an unconscious gesture that would intrigue the good Dobrinon. "I cannot reconcile coercing you to find out if the… flitting four were in any way coerced."

"I quite appreciate your dilemma, so I'll lift you off one horn. I do not, not even after all your interesting disclosures, consider myself coerced. Ah ah," for Rocco began to protest. "Pressured? Possibly, but I've been conditioned to a fine sense of responsibility, you see. I brought the equations for that nardy drive back to Regulus, and I inadvertently misplaced four passengers who were, you must admit, essentially my responsibility to convey thither and hither safely. I'd like some peace of mind on both counts."

"I'll forego knowing about our lost souls if you'll forego that drive."

"No way. I want that drive. How else can we pay oS my indebtedness?"

"I'll call foul for you?"

"Rocco, I'm surprised. Shocked! This cannot be the incorruptible…"

"Damn it, Helva, I want you out of that contract and out away from Parollan. He's dangerous!" Rocco was on his feet and pacing.

"Good heavens! Why?"

"He's got a fixation on you, a brawn fixation."

"Who told you that? Broley? Oh, fardles, Rocco! Because he had the Asurans extrapolate a solido of me from my genetic background?"

"You knew?"

"He had a set made of every BB ship he supervised."

Rocco pointed a finger at her. "You're different."

"Quite likely. He's my brawn. Bluntly, Rocco, you're making a tempest in a teacup."

"A fixation could be dangerous to you in space, Helva, in a man of Parollan's sexual appetite."

"That fixation reached critical… and passed. That's why Niall became my brawn. He's far more aware of the inherent dangers of a brawn fixation than you are, Rocco. Or Broley."

Rocco affected a shrug, but Helva suspected he was unconvinced.

"All right, Helva, we're back to Square One and I'll rephrase my initial question: Do you want what you now have, or were you mods to want it?"

"Hey, Helva," Niall said into the corn-unit, "let the lift down."

"Think on it, Helva, and remember that you can count on my support if you feel that you have actually been constrained against your own best interests."