Helva

Helva is the main and eponymous character of The Ship Who Sang. She is a shellperson and a brain. Her personal callsign is XH-834.

Helva was born with birth complications, but passed an electro-encephalogram, indicating healthy brain activity. Her parents chose to give her up to the shellperson program rather than euthanize her. The book follows her through the Laboratory Schools, where she learns everything she needs to know

When she was 14, she chose to take an elective arts class and painted the Last Supper on the head of a screw. During this class, an exploratory commission from the Society for the Preservation of the Rights of Intelligent Minorities visited her class and one of the members remarked upon the quality of Helva's voice. This prompted the development of Helva's interest in the physical production and process of singing, a hobby she would carry with her for the rest of her life. Her range was unusual due to her shellperson origin; she could sing any role or range she pleased, from soprano to bass.

She graduated from Laboratory Schools on her 16th birthday and was installed into a brainship, also called a scout ship. She chose to work with Jennan because he treated her like a person; their partnership thus dubbed them the JH-834. She fell in love with him quickly, though she didn't understand what she was feeling.

After several successful missions, during which Helva sang arias on open transmissions, they began to dub her the Ship Who Sang, and the rumors spread through a large section of space. During one such mission on the planet Chloe, which was being threatened by its own unstable star, Jennan died when a group of colonists resisted evacuation, delaying their departure until the star started to expand.