THE SHIP AVENGED

Another entry in the Brain/Brawn series created by Anne McCaffrey, and a direct sequel to the paperback The City Who Fought (McCaffrey and Stirling); ``brains'' are humans wired directly and immovably into their spaceships, ``brawns'' their mobil human partners. Planet Bethel bigwig Amos ben Sierra Nueva and his daughter Soamosa are kidnapped by the evil mutant, Belazair of Kolnar, in revenge for a previous defeat; Belazair plans to infect Amos with a contagious brain-destroying virus and then send him back to Bethel. So, after some arm-twisting by secret agent Bros Sperin, spaceship Wyal (brain: Rand; brawn: Joat Simeon-Hap) speeds to the rescue, though Joat and Rand don't yet know about the virus. But then Belazair's kindly son, Karak, refuses to torture Soamosa; instead he falls in love and escapes with her. Joat, meanwhile, discovers that one of Belazair's key associates is the drug-ruined uncle who, when she was a small girl, sold her into slavery in settlement of a gambling debt. Not to worry, though: In McCaffrey universes, the good guys always win in the end. Pretty good ersatz McCaffrey, despite the feebly unconvincing love story.