The Ship Who Sang

Helva had been born human, but only her brain had been saved—saved to be schooled, programmed, and implanted into the sleek titanium body of an intergalactic scout ship. But first she had to choose a human partner—male or female—to share her exhilarating escapades in space!

The Ship Who Sang follows the story of Helva, a child who is born with birth complications but with a bright and healthy mind. Her parents give her up to the shellperson program, and Helva is inserted into a metal shell, and trains to become a brainship.

After she graduates, she selects Jennan as her brawn, the only brawn who treated her like a person, and falls in love with him. Several successful missions follow, during which she's dubbed the Ship Who Sings from her habit of singing arias on open communication lines. During their last mission, evacuating a planet ahead of the catastrophic expansion of their sun, Jennan dies when a panicked refugee accidentally rips open his spacesuit.

After his funeral, Helva is directed to take Theoda, a physiotherapist, to a planet with an plague of unknown origin. Between helping with the plague victims and speaking of her grief at last, Helva learns to look toward the future again. She lifts off and returns to Central for another assignment.