Virtual Mode

  Darius faced Pussy. "Should I be talking with Cat instead of you?"

  "Yes."

  "Thank you. Pussy. I will talk with him, if this will not hurt your feelings."

  She looked confused. "He means kindness. Pussy," Cat said to her. "He appreciates what you have done so far."

  "Oh, thank you!" she said, relieved. As always, it was the ball that spoke, but the distinction had become meaningless; it was her voice, and her thought.

  Cat faced Darius. "This was an example. When you said 'if' this would not hurt her feelings, she was not sure whether they should be hurt, which would mean she had in some way failed you. I provided the reassurance you intended. If I interpret your intent incorrectly, or if you prefer that I not do this, advise me and I will desist."

  Darius was fascinated by this information. It was apparent that these servants could indeed be useful. "How may I circumvent the restriction against assigning a service to another person?"

  "One way would be to volunteer to do a service yourself for that person, begin it, then have one of us complete it for you. You are free to make commitments in ways we are not."

  Darius nodded. "You serve me because you serve the Captain?"

  "We serve you because we have been assigned to you. An officer of the Navy normally keeps his own nulls to serve him wherever he is employed. If you wish other nulls, we can be exchanged. But for the duration we are loyal to you, not the office, and you may trust us always to serve your interest to the best of our understanding and ability."

  Provos emerged from the cleaning chamber, looking refreshed. She glanced at Darius. "You need more sleep and rest than you get this night," she said reprovingly in his language. "At least have them give you a nourishment pill."

  "I will show you to a bedchamber," Darius said, rising. He walked toward her, having no idea where it was or whether it existed. He looked back. "Pussy, please complete this task for me, and see that Provos is as comfortable as I would make her."

  Pussy jumped up, her breasts bouncing. "It is this way," she said, almost purring as she led Provos to another panel and through to another chamber.

  "Thank you, Darius," Provos said, familiar with this protocol from her memory.

  He settled down with the remaining two Felines. He realized that he was hungry. "Nourishment pill?"

  "Immediately," Tom said, and rose to fetch a tablet.

  Darius accepted the pill, and gazed at it. "This will feed me?"

  "Yes. You may order a conventional meal if you prefer."

  "No, I'll try this." If Provos remembered it as satisfactory, it probably was. He popped the pill in his mouth and swallowed it with saliva.

  He was no longer hungry. Evidently this was something like magic. That made it acceptable. He returned to business. "The executive officer called me 'sir'. Why did he do this, and why don't you?"

  " 'Sir' is a token of respect given by a human to one of a higher rank in the Navy," Cat said. "We are not human, so lack the status to show respect. One must possess sufficient status to have his token of respect be worthy."

  "Pussy has performed a service for me, and you are performing one now. If it is not convenient for me to find a service for Tom to do, how can I avoid causing him distress?"

  "His distress has no force against your convenience. You may ignore it."

  "It would cause me distress to cause any of you needless distress."

  "Then I can suggest tasks which would not cause you inconvenience."

  "Yes."

  "Is there anything you desire which would be awkward or inconvenient for you to achieve at present by your own action?"

  "I'd like to be with Colene!" Darius said before he thought.

  "This is a human person?"

  "This is a human person I came to be with. But Ddwng has separated us, pending a mission I must complete for him. I don't want to do a mission, I want to take Colene home with me. But I think this is beyond your capacity to remedy."

  "It is," Cat agreed. "But we can provide you with partial satisfaction with no more effort on your part than you choose to exert."

  "Then do it."

  Tom got up. He touched a section of the wall opposite Darius, and the mural became a scene of an office so realistic that there seemed to be a window between the two chambers. A null with the head of a dog sat at a desk.

  The Canine glanced at them and spoke in an incomprehensible language.

  "Speak English, Bitch," Tom snapped.

  "What do you want, Tom?" she inquired. It was probably a ball speaking for her, but since the sound came through the window it made no difference.

  "Information, by order of Captain Darius of the Flay," Tom said curtly.

  "I will give you Dog." She touched a button. The picture changed. Now there was another office, with what appeared to be a neuter Canine. "What information, Tom?" it asked.

  "The present location and accessibility of the human Colene, visitor to this Mode."

  Dog touched buttons of his own. He studied what might have been a screen they could not see. "The human Colene is the present consort of the Emperor Ddwng. As such she is accessible only by his leave."

  Darius was stunned. Consort?

  "The Captain requests that leave," Tom said.

  "This may require some delay."

  Cat glanced at Darius. "We'll wait," Darius said.

  "Proceed," Cat said.

  The picture changed again. Now it showed a woman with the head of a pig. "Tom, why do you seek this contact?" she asked.

  "I speak for Captain Darius, Sow. He does not answer to you."

  Darius appreciated the imperious attitude Tom was showing. That was about the way he felt. It seemed appropriate that the bureaucracy should be represented by swine.

  A male pig-head appeared. "By order of our master Ddwng, Darius will answer to the Swine," he snorted. His tone was arrogant in the masculine fashion.

  "Boar, Darius wishes contact with Colene, with whom he has had prior connection. Screen contact will do on an interim basis."

  A third Swine appeared, evidently the neuter. "This may be granted. But there is information I must impart first."

  Tom glanced at Darius again. Darius nodded—

  "Impart it. Pig."

  "Colene's present status is nominal. She is not subject to present sexual use by the Emperor, but is required to present herself and comport herself as his consort. This is a compatible existence, and her status is one to incite the envy of all women. If Darius fails to accommodate Ddwng in the required manner at the deadline, Colene's ovaries will be removed for the genetic bank and she will be given as a full-human concubine, to whatever officer is selected. Should she resist, she will be lobotomized to the degree necessary to make her docile. She has not been informed of this."

  Darius felt faint. He had known that pressure would be brought to bear on him, to make him help Ddwng obtain the Chip. Sterilization of Colene had already been threatened. But he had not realized how ruthless the full course would be. Colene was hostage to his cooperation—and he seemed to have no way to fight it.

  "And should Darius do the Emperor's will?" Tom inquired.

  "Colene will be restored to him whole, and they will be given their freedom, either as ranking persons within the Empire or to travel to another Mode."

  What choice did he have? Yet a person who would make this kind of threat and back it up would probably also break his word. It might be pointless to agree. At least he had ten days to think about it.

  "Message received," Tom" said. "May Darius now see Colene?"

  The screen changed again. Suddenly Colene was there, in her ornate gown, sparkling hair and bracelets. She was beautiful in her vibrant youth. No one would know from her appearance that she was suicidal, and she had surely kept the secret.

  She saw him. "Darius!" she exclaimed, stepping toward him.

  Unable to help himself, he stepped toward her too. They met at the screen/wall between them, the images of their hands to
uching the cold surface. They tried to kiss, but again it was only images meeting.

  "I asked to be with you," he said.

  "We're not even in the same stellar system," she replied. "I'm still on Earth, and you're on an FTL ship crossing the galaxy."

  "Ddwng wants me to lead him to the Chip."

  "Don't do it!" she exclaimed. "He wants to conquer the other Modes too!"

  "But if I do not—"

  "We won't be allowed together," she finished. "I know that, Darius. But we owe something to our realities. We can't let them be despoiled. I love you, and I want to be with you, but not this way." Her face shone with tears. "If you find a way to escape, don't wait for me. Just get gone!"

  "Colene, I love you too, and I curse the moment I failed to bring you with me. There are other ways—we don't have to marry—I found a woman who can—we can love, if—"

  "Prima," she agreed. "I understand. It is good. It's not what I first dreamed of, but I love you so, I don't care. But not—you know. Not this way."

  "Not this way," he agreed.

  "They're not cutting us off," she said, surprised.

  "Because the more we see of each other, the more we will be willing to sacrifice for each other," he said.

  "Yes. So I guess we'd better quit now." Her tears were streaming down her face. "But it's been great, Darius!"

  "It is not over!" he protested. "It can't be over! I went to the Virtual Mode only for you!"

  "My life is nothing. It's complete. But you—thank you for stepping into my life, Darius, however briefly. You made it all worthwhile."

  She turned away. He did the same. What irony, to seem so close, yet be so far! To exchange vows of love, yet to have to deny the realization of them.

  He became aware of the three Felines. Pussy had rejoined the group.

  He stepped into her and embraced her. She was completely soft and responsive. He buried his face in her furry hair and let himself hurt.

  "You may take me in your bedroom, or here, as you wish," she murmured.

  She misunderstood the nature of his emotion. "Another time," he said. "I have much still to learn here." Then he disengaged, resumed his chair, and organized his thoughts.

  He looked at Tom. "That was a significant service," he said. "Now you may retire; I will not need you until morning."

  Tom walked to a niche, lay on the floor, curled up, and put his head down. In a moment he was asleep.

  "You also," he said to Pussy. She selected another nook and curled up similarly, showing firm upper thigh. Apparently it was simply her nature to display her body.

  "From you I need more information," he said to Cat. "What does 'FTL' mean?"

  "It stands for 'faster than light'," it explained. "This ship, for example, is the FTL Flay, capable of traveling a great deal faster than the velocity of light through a vacuum. It is proceeding at that rate to the site of your mission, and will arrive in approximately fifty hours' travel time."

  "I am from a culture where the velocity of light does not matter. Translate that into something I can follow."

  "If you walked entirely around the globe of Earth, you would travel about twenty-five thousand miles, as this language has it. If you completed that circuit seven or eight times, you would cover the distance light travels in a single second. The spans between stars are such that we prefer to measure them in multiples of the amount light travels in a year. This ship traverses a thousand light-years each hour, so its destination is fifty thousand light-years from Earth, or about halfway across the galaxy."

  Darius found that the translated version was not much more intelligible than the original. "So we are now an enormous distance from Earth, and going farther away."

  "That is correct. But we shall return as readily as we go."

  "What is the mission I am to accomplish?"

  "A monster is rampaging on a colony planet, and the natives are unable to dispatch it. You will do that."

  With magic, Darius knew he could set a monster back. But magic had not worked for him in any of the Modes beyond the region of his own.

  Still, he should test it. He removed his pack and brought out his golem-figure of himself. "To the far corner of this chamber," he murmured, and made the figure jump.

  Nothing happened. There was not even a tug in his stomach. Magic was not operative here.

  Darius sighed. He was in effect a man without special power. "I am not skilled in this."

  "It is not necessary that you be so." The Felines seemed to have no interest in his peculiar action with the figurine; evidently his business was his business, unless he made it theirs. "You will have merely to give the necessary directives. Nulls will assume the risk and complete the job."

  "So I'm a figurehead," he said.

  "No, nulls have no initiative in such respects," it reassured him. "A ranking human being must be in charge of the operation."

  "But any human could do it, even a complete ignoramus."

  "Yes."

  "So why did Ddwng bother to send me? Just to get me out of the way for a while?"

  "I can not speak for the motives of the Emperor, but it seems reasonable that he has several reasons. He may wish to give you time and experience so that you can come to the conclusion that it is best to accede to his wishes. He may wish to keep you away from Colene. He may wish to prevent you from departing via your Virtual Mode. He may wish to keep you out of mischief without imprisoning you. And he may wish to discover how competent an officer you have the potential of being, in the event that you are converted to his cause. This mission accomplishes these things."

  The reasoning was formidable. "I think I had better do as good a job as I can, until I decide what I will do."

  "That seems appropriate," it agreed.

  "What is known about this monster?"

  "It seems to be a beast set on wanton destruction. It sets fire to villages, floods pastures, and fouls food supplies. No one has seen it, but its presence is manifest."

  "Why don't they lock doors and set guards?"

  "They do, but the monster is extremely cunning about locks, and can stun guards."

  Darius pondered that. "What are the natives like?"

  "They are similar in outline and manner to Earthly snails, but larger. They are reasonably intelligent and capable, but slow."

  That surprised Darius. He had assumed that the natives were human, with a culture distinct from that of the colonists. Snails? This was a far land indeed!

  He continued to question Cat, learning more about the various aspects of this Mode. It seemed that there were many intelligent creatures in what was called the galaxy, but that the humans had become dominant and now governed and exploited all of it they wished. They had risen to dominance thousands of years before, because of their ability to make ships that traveled faster than light, to nullify the effects of gravity, and to make weapons that could kill individual creatures or destroy entire planets.

  But when they had sought to invade other Modes, the dominant cultures of those had taken action. The humans in most Modes were isolated on their home planet, causing trouble only to the creatures there; only in this Mode had they mastered the elusive secrets of super-science that enabled them to spread out and molest the larger galaxy. The creatures of other Modes had an ancient compact which prevented them from committing genocide in any single Mode. So they isolated this Mode by sterilizing the adjacent Modes and barring any contact from beyond. So it had been for a thousand years.

  That explained what he and Provos had seen on the way here. "But then how did this come to be an anchor Mode for our Virtual Mode?"

  "We can only conjecture," Cat said. "The lives of empires are long, but the lives of individual creatures are short. Some creature must have become careless, and not been watching when your Virtual Mode was instituted. In fact, the possession of a Chip by human beings in any Mode constitutes a violation of the proscription. It seems likely that in due course this error will be corrected, and human beings wil
l be confined again, to either their conquered Mode or their individual world in other Modes."

  "Unless Ddwng succeeds in getting his hands on the Chip in my Mode first," Darius said. "Then he will spread his minions across many Modes in a hurry, making it impossible to isolate them without doing enormous damage to innocent creatures."

  "This I suspect is the strategy," Cat agreed.

  "I see why he wants my Chip." Darius was careful not to mention that it was only one of many in his Mode, evidently a forgotten horde. "But why is he giving me ten days to make up my mind? Surely time is of the essence."

  "Ddwng is competent, and comes from a lineage of competent emperors. He is surely doing what is most advantageous to his purpose, considering all factors. It may be that the risks of forcing the issue rapidly are worse than those of giving you time, despite the danger of having the error discovered. Perhaps it is unlikely that the error will be noted until the Chip begins to be exploited. But it seems that the Emperor is not willing to risk too much time, as he has set the limit."

  That reminded Darius of the threat against Colene. Evidently Ddwng didn't know that she was suicidal, so that he was unlikely to get any long servitude from her if she didn't like it. But the nature of the threat was perplexing. "Why have her ovaries cut out? There are surely more painful tortures that would not disfigure her."

  "She would not be disfigured," it said. "The surgery would be painless. Torture is done not by mutilation, but by infliction of harmless pain."

  "Harmless pain! How can that be?"

  Cat got up and went to another panel. It opened, and from it, it took a small disk. "This is a pain control. It is attuned to you, so that it will not affect you. But it will cause discomfort in any other person, whether human or null, within its range, to whatever degree you choose. This dial sets the level."

  "Harmless pain?" Darius repeated.

  "You may demonstrate it on me if you wish. However I must caution you that if you do not wish to render me unconscious, do not turn it to the highest range."

  "Demonstrate it on you? I have no wish to hurt you, and what would it prove? Demonstrate it on me."

  "This is a thing I may not do, for I think you do not understand what you are asking."