The Ship Errant

The Ship Errant Carialle and Keff were the brain ship and brawn crew who were lucky enough and smart enough to discover intelligent life on the planet Ozran, the first such discovery in years. Amazingly enough, the survived to tell the story. But that's not enough for Inspector General Sennet Maxwell-Corey. Screwball teams like Carialle & Keff don't fill in the forms right. Worse, they named the new alien race "globe frogs" ! (Well, they looked like frogs and they traveled in globes. ) A sense of humor has no place in Maxwell-Corey's universe. Moreover, the Inspector General has it in for Carialle; he is sure that she was hopelessly damaged in her very first mission when her Brawn was killed by a planted bomb and she was left derelict in space for weeks suffering the special nightmare for a brain ship: total sensory deprivation. During her time so very alone, Carialle became convinced that someone was trying to dismantle her, salvage bits and pieces off the wreck. To a brain ship, that's like being vivisected, but there was never any proof of this, and it's just another clip in the files as far the Inspector General is concerned-more evidence if any were needed that Carialle ought to be sidelined. But with Keff's loving help, Maxwell Corey has been foiled for now and She's gotten over the trauma. Until that, she and Keff serve as couriers for the globe-frogs, good friends now, taking them back to their home planet, which just happens to be in the same sector as Carialle's early trauma. Now A message device illegally implanted on Carialle has informed the Inspector General of a momentary but disabling anxiety attack Carialle suffered on learning of her destination. Keff is furious. He wants to get Maxwell-Corey; more, he'd like to be able to get the slime who caused Carialle such pain in the first place. There's only one problem: that slime may well have been those very globe-flogs he's just become friends with. . .