Chapter 1: Born This Way!

At 0001 hours on Caleb’s fourteenth birthday, the upper portal of Caleb’s personal capsule opened, and a young, perfect, breast was presented to his lips. Simultaneously, a lower portal was unfastened, and a young, bare, pussy engulfed his instant woody. The young woman rode until he spasmed and a voice near his ear declared, “Swap! Now! Bitch! My Turn!” Then, “Ahhhhh!”

By 0503 hours Dora and Jubal finished CAP testing Caleb. As a sponsor, Caleb immediately authorized the surgery/transfer he had wanted for most of his conscious life.

Jubal and Dora were present when Caleb woke. The transition was a success.

He could see. For a while, whole seconds, Caleb luxuriated in that knowledge. Anne McCaffrey had written true, “No amount of simulator training conveyed what it really felt like, to have a functioning ship wrapped around you.” Hot damn!

Caleb consulted his internal clock and knew he had been ‘out’ for exactly two standard days. That made him fourteen years, three days, three hours and forty-two seconds old. Forty-three. Forty-four. Forty-five...

Dora and Jubal watched carefully as he began to test other senses, other functions. He could hear people moving around inside him and talking. Caleb knew who they were – his brawns – his Three Musketeers, Athos, Porthos, and Aramis – Chloe and the twins, David and Julia. He, of course, was D’Artagnan. His ship, his metal body, he had named Cheval Jaune for the yellow horse ridden by D’Artagnan as he began his adventures.

He turned fans on and off, opened and closed hatches, accessed extra computer storage, explored every part of himself.

It took a lot of negotiations, trading, and work, but Caleb was now a brainship. Yes, an honest-to-gosh, Anne McCaffrey-imagined, human brain/body removed from his mobile personal capsule and transferred into and melded with a starship. An experiment. The first human of his kind. But by damn, a brainship! Jubal didn’t need personal monitors to see that he was ecstatic.

<I see you are awake.> Mama Dora greeted him via his new implant. <Let me be the first to congratulate you on your successful transition, but you’d better speak to the three symbiōtēs running around inside you. They are about to pee themselves with anticipation and need for news. Chloe and Julia are both pregnant – be surprised and very happy! The babies will be healthy!>

Caleb wasn’t surprised, but he was very happy! Now that his body was embedded within his ship’s protected column, sex – even touch and taste – would be a much more complex process.

Sometimes, even the healthiest parents make a baby that just can’t survive. That was Caleb. In another time, another place, Caleb would have likely died in the womb. He would have at best been stillborn; at worst he’d have died a painful, wasting death stretched over a handful of months.

Caleb was barely a collection of unspecialized cells when Dora reported to his other parents that there was a problem. Dora may have been an AI, but she was also sister-wife to Caleb’s biological parents. Thus, she was one of his several mommies, the only one ‘in the know’, and the one who could do something. Dora was not going to give up her child, so she plotted and planned with her AI friends. T’Kleesual became Uncle Jubal and T’Kuudshpp, AI of The Good Ship Lollipop, became Auntie Lolli.

Members of Caleb’s family were voracious readers. Because they were, and because they were interested, Dora read and absorbed everything her family read. Lolli arrived at the same place on her own. ‘Where?’ you might ask, ‘did they all arrive?’ Where else but at Anne McCaffrey’s Brainship sagas?

They had time, not a lot, but time enough to start, to plan and to gather resources. The awakened Tuull AI, T’Kleeoran, was busy, very busy. She and her friend T’Kuudshpp, were sorting and resorting through the sum of human knowledge stored within the massive archived database carried in the hold of The Good Ship Lollipop.

Caleb’s muscle-wasting condition was similar to muscular dystrophy or the lesser-known Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, but so severe that without nanite support, its victims couldn’t survive until birth. Consequently, the human’s database had little to offer the two Tuull AI researchers. Dora programmed nanites to supply necessary enzymes for muscle growth, but with limited success. She concentrated on developing and supporting the involuntary muscles needed for heartbeats and other functions. Caleb’s nervous system, brain included, came along just fine, but he would never run or walk, not even breathe enough to support body growth.

While working to save Caleb, Dora almost frantically analyzed Michael’s DNA and that of Caleb’s biological mother. Finding nothing significant in either parent, she could only conclude that one or both of the gametes was a mutation and a one-in-a-billion defective shot. That was of little comfort in the current situation – maybe later...

With little useful information in the human medical database and no specific data available to AIs far from their home worlds, Dora and Michael decided to appeal to the Tuull directly. Inkie aboard Helva was fresh from her ultra successful mission to Tuullat, and Michael asked her and T’Kleesual, to return to the Tuull and request assistance.

Inkie and Helva decided that a minimal crew and passenger list would be best. They included Vivie, Helva’s new captain and brawn, and Vivie’s new protégé, Cadet Wendy Darling. From Inkie’s combo, they selected only the bassist, the guitarist, and the drummer. Wendy’s dependents were placed in the care of Vivie’s remaining family. Dinky and Armand, Inkie’s adopted children, completed the human complement.

Once again, Inkie entered the council chamber, this time accompanied by the holographic avatars of Helva, nee T’Krandit, and Jubal, nee T’Kleesual. She found the thirteen Tuull members of the Planetary Council, seated at their oval table – twenty-six raccoon-appearing eyes giving her their undivided attention.

As she entered, Lead Counselor T’Bwinkel, the one with silver in her furred tail, rose and greeted her through an AI interface. <S’Rndult T’Blssut, Inkie, welcome. The facilities for the new conservatory are not yet completed. We had not expected your return so soon.>

“Nor I, Lead Counselor, Rocky – T’Bwinkel,” Inkie responded in Tuull, inwardly smiling at the irreverent name Jubal had foisted upon the counselor and privately shooting, <I still owe you for that name!> to the older AI.

Using her sleep trainer and practicing with her AI companions, Inkie was learning the Tuull language. Her marvelous ear and ultra flexible voice let her get close to understanding and speaking with some hope of not offending. Taking a deep breath, she ventured a well-rehearsed beginning, “Friend T’Bwinkel. Friend Counselors. We desperately need your assistance. Governor Michael’s unborn offspring has a major defect, and we seek knowledge of how to correct it and how to help him survive and have a fulfilling and productive existence. We have an idea, but we need information. We need technology,” Inkie told the council, but addressed T’Bwinkel.

“Explain your thoughts, and we will see if we can help,” the startled and highly pleased T’Bwinkel answered. “But do have a seat with us at the council table.”

Inkie walked over, seated herself in the chair that rose through the floor, and began.

“Our preference would be a biological cure, but T’Kleeoran and T’Kuudshpp feel that is a very low probability given the little time to research beyond the current knowledge of human biology. We have a technology idea that comes from a work of fiction, several actually, so while we have the concept, we do not have all the means to implement.”

Inkie expanded, “We propose a two-step solution. Shortly after birth, as soon as practical, the newborn would be placed – melded really – into a mobile life-support capsule. Upon reaching his majority and with an appropriate CAP score, he would transfer to an interstellar ship – a setting similar to one surrounding an AI. In my language, our fiction terms this a ‘brainship’,” She paused, and translated ‘brainship’ into the Tuull that T’Kleesual had assured was a good approximation. Then somewhat tentatively, she told them, “We, humans and AIs, are thinking this would be a logical expansion of the experiment now underway with the Harrad Colony.”

When Inkie went silent to wait for a response, the council members looked around the table, and one spoke to the other council members, “The proposal has its risks, and we would need to research to see if such a melding is possible. I seem to recall a now extinct species that did something similar...”