Viscous Circle

  "That's why you did not answer Cirl's call? To set up a liaison between us without her knowledge?"

  "Why else?"

  Why else? Did he have a nymphomaniac here? "Tangt, you misunderstood my signal. I have no wish to deceive my Solarian wife or my Band wife, and am certainly not seeking liaisons with business associates." He had thought she understood, in their Solarian exchange; how could he have been so wrong?

  "You don't desire me?"

  Now he had to be careful. There was no sense in antagonizing her; she could betray him from spite. "Were circumstances otherwise, I would be interested in you. You are certainly alluring, physically, in both human and Band form. But I have become a creature of some scruple, and I have other commitments. Perhaps the males you have encountered before are otherwise. I had an entirely different purpose in coming here."

  "Then it seems I did not misread your signal," she said.

  "But you did! I seek no romantic liaison!"

  "Neither do I," she flashed.

  "Now you have me thoroughly confused!"

  "There were two interpretations to your manner when we conversed in Sphere Sol, assuming you were neither stupid nor crazy. Rather than betray myself needlessly, I was prepared to submit sexually. That would at least preserve my life."

  Rondl realized she had indulged in a rather neat ploy. Sex instead of treason—that was certainly safer! "What is your alternative interpretation?"

  "If I understood your signals correctly back in System Sirius, you have lost sympathy with the Solarian objectives."

  Now the treason was out in the open, at least between them. "True. The Monster intrusion is decimating the Band population. I feel this is wrong."

  "I agree. But you understand that to take any action detrimental to the immediate objectives of our kind is to invite severe repercussion if it is discovered."

  Rondl felt relief, then renewed apprehension. She agreed with him—except that her like-mindedness could be a ruse. She could be trying to trap him into fully incriminating himself. How could he be sure she could be trusted?

  He decided he simply had to take the risk. "I understand that well. It is treason I contemplate, by the definition of my original species. But I no longer consider myself a Solarian; I identify with the Bands. There must be many Solarians whose conscience would agree with mine. It simply is not right to destroy one species, especially a sapient one, for the marginal benefit of another."

  "An Ancient Site is hardly marginal."

  "Compared to genocide, it is!" He drifted along his line a moment, then decided to tackle the issue forthrightly. "My affinity, as I said, is with the Bands. My human conscience has been awakened, and I must and shall do what I feel is right. I realize that I cannot be sure of your own attitude, and I risk being betrayed by you. I hope your agreement with me is sincere, and that you will help me save the Bands. But I will try to help them regardless. The question is not which side I am on, but whether you are with me or against me."

  "You put it nicely," she flashed. "I am in a similar situation. I can't be sure of you; there is no honor among Monsters. But it is reasonable to assume you feel as I do. The Band society is very like the ideal that human beings have always professed to crave, but have never actually practiced. No Band criticizes another or lets another come to harm without trying to help. No Band wrongs another. There is no theft, no murder, no misrepresentation, no quarreling. As I think you know, I found myself without memory in Band host. A male Band helped me, and I married him. I doubt I would have survived without him. In fact I think ten other agents succumbed because they failed to find such friends, though they could have had friends merely for the asking, had they but realized. Maybe their own distrust killed them, fittingly enough. I was happy. Then I suffered nightmares—"

  "Me too!"

  "And finally I was back in my own Solarian host body, and it was horrible. Not only the body—the society, too. That ingrained suspicion and narrow self-interest! I had leaped involuntarily from paradise to the gutter. I wanted to be a Band, but circumstance made me a Monster. I did not know what to do. So I played it safe by acting Solarian, and the stupid computer cleared me. But as time passed I did not settle into the Monster mode; the Band system had the lure of some powerful drug, a good drug, bringing me back to it. Paradise is addictive!"

  "My experience exactly!" Rondl agreed. "I saw that if I did nothing, the Bands would be destroyed. The forces of Satan were invading Heaven itself, and how could I stand idly by? It is not that the Solarians mean to commit genocide; it is that they are hardly aware of what is happening, and hardly care. There might as well be buzzing gnats in their way, for all the consideration the Monsters give the Bands. By the time any protest could be lodged through channels, the Bands would be gone. So I had to act. When I learned there was only one other survivor—"

  "Yes. Let's face it: either one of us can betray the other the moment we are again recalled to Sol hosts. Either one of us can give away the location of the Ancient Site."

  "You know where it is?"

  "Not yet. But I'm sure I can find it by asking around, and so can you. Bands don't keep secrets. So neither of us has security in this respect."

  "Yet if you wanted to betray me, you could have done so without ever meeting me here," Rondl pointed out.

  "No. I might have misread your signals. Maybe you were just looking for a human mind in Band host to romance. There are ways and ways of getting sexual kicks."

  "So you explored that aspect first. That was intelligent. I never thought of it. But what would you have done, if—?"

  "As I said, I was prepared to carry through. I love my husbands, both of them, and I am not promiscuous. But I'm not suicidal either, and there just may be the biggest prize of the Galaxy on the line in the Ancient Site. If sex with you salvaged my life despite my treason, then it would have been a matter of necessity. But you would have had neither my love nor my respect."

  "The same for me. But the respect, I think, you are earning. I'm glad you arranged for such a private interview; it was certainly essential that we work out our confusions. We don't want or need the complication of any romantic involvement between us."

  "Agreed." But there was something about the way she flashed it that made him wonder. She was beautiful in either form, and it might have been nice to—

  No. He did not want to fall prey to the fickleness of the masculine urge.

  "Now I think we'll have to plan a strategy if we are to help the Bands," she said. "We may not be able to stop the Monsters from discovering the Site eventually, but maybe we can lead them astray."

  "They have already missed it."

  "Already? But their search pattern is thorough!"

  "The Site is on a moon. It looks like natural terrain. They'll never find it." Some lingering vestige of caution caused him not to name the moon. He thought Tangt was all right, but there was no point in taking any unnecessary risk. She might find out anyway, of course.

  "Then our problem is solved. We'll just report we couldn't find it."

  "And their continuing search will eradicate the entire Band society," he said morosely.

  "I fear you are correct. Then we'll have to give the Site to them after all."

  "Give it to them?"

  "It is better to have the Monsters gain an Ancient Site than to have them commit incidental genocide in a vain search for it. Choice between evils."

  Rondl hadn't given serious thought to that course. "I organized a Band army of sorts to repel the Monster advance. I prefer to drive the Monsters out of Band space entirely. Why should their violence be permitted to profit them?"

  "You got Bands to fight? The ones I know would rather disband!"

  "It takes special training. We do lose a number to disbanding. They don't even think of it as suicide; it's easy for them."

  "I know. I wonder how many human beings would suicide at some point in their lives, if it was as easy as thinking one thought and blinking out painlessly? Espec
ially if they were assured of going instantly to heaven for eternal bliss."

  "Most of them. At some point, even if only briefly, we all want to die. It would certainly be better than struggling with progressive illness, or degeneration of faculties late in life."

  She spun thoughtfully. "Their belief in the Viscous Circle is so firm! What survival value can there be in a species belief in fantasy? It's almost as if someone inculcated this illusion to wipe them out."

  "That's the way I see it," Rondl agreed. "Yet their faith is consistent with their pacifism. Any aggressive, negative, emotionally off-balanced elements disappear, because it is the unstable individual that is most likely to suicide. What's left is the finest. It would be ideal for Band society to be isolated from the more aggressive Spheres—if only that were possible."

  "It was isolated until this Ancient Site showed up. I wish I could stay here forever."

  "But we can't. We must revert to Monster status, or have our auras slowly fade away to nothing. No Transfer is permanent."

  "Don't I know it! For us there is no Nirvana. But we must try to save it for the Bands." She slid irresolutely along the line. "I didn't know it was possible for Bands to fight. Do you really think they can drive the Monsters out?"

  Rondl reconsidered soberly. "No. Not alone. I have probably recruited the least stable of the Bands, the ones who are most willing to take risks and be unsocial. Even those are basically nice people, who would not partake of war as Monsters know it. We have to try for nonviolent ways to oppose the invasion, and that is difficult. We only delayed the siege of Moon Glow; we didn't halt it. We'll do better next time, but at best it's a holding action. And we have only one more moon to hold before they lay siege to Planet Band itself. We need more."

  "What we need," she flashed brightly, "is the use of that Ancient Site. There never was an Ancient Site in a decent state of preservation that didn't transform the situation of the discovering culture."

  "That's why Sol wants the Site," Rondl agreed glumly. But the notion appealed to him. What could his group of trained Bands do if their powers were suddenly magnified by the technology of the Ancients? Bands were not atechnological; it only seemed that way because they had so few tangible artifacts. They could make complex electronic components merely by concentrating on the magnetic structure of metal objects. Bombs would be possible, perhaps, if a triggered release of intense magnetism were arranged; and super-powerful lasers. And devices no bigger than grains of sand might disrupt the computer circuitry of major ships. The possibilities were endless—with a little more technological information at their disposal.

  "They might drive the Monsters right out of the System and preserve Sphere Band forever," Tangt finished for him.

  "If only we had the Site to draw on," Rondl said. "But we don't."

  "It's a vicious circle. You need the Site—to drive the Monsters away from the Site."

  "And if we don't get the Site, the Monsters will send all Bands to the Viscous Circle," Rondl agreed.

  "On the other hand, if we tell the Monsters where the Site is, we can probably save the Bands. The Monsters just don't really care about the Bands, one way or the other."

  "They just don't really care," Rondl echoed.

  "What moon is it on?"

  Now was the test of his faith in her. It was insufficient. "Dinge," he lied. "Moon Dinge, the smallest, farthest, faintest one."

  "Well, there's one moon remaining before they attack Planet Band itself," she concluded. "Let's try your way first. Try to fight them off, hold them back, save that moon."

  "Moon Fair, the closest, biggest, brightest, prettiest," he agreed. "If we could hold them off one moon, maybe we could push them off another, and finally win back the System." Was this a foolish dream?

  "And if we fail—if Moon Fair falls—then we shall report dutifully to our kind that the Ancient Site is on Moon Dinge," she said.

  "Yes," he agreed, feeling guilty. Why did he keep reminding himself that he was a Monster? No Band could have lied like that—especially not to a friend. "We'll report that, if we fail."

  "Then we are unified," she flashed enthusiastically. "Maybe we can break the vicious circle—and if we can't, at least we'll save the Bands."

  "One way or another," he agreed.

  "I'm almost sorry we came here on business. I think the other would not have been so bad."

  Now Rondl's guilt was two-edged: for the lie that helped make her amenable, and for his increasing desire for that amenability. She was magnetically attractive; among Bands, attraction was literal, though they also used the word figuratively. "Let's get out of here," he suggested, not wanting to be near her much longer—for both reasons.

  Chapter 16

  Moon Fair

  Rondl and Tangt separated, he going to locate Cirl, she to rejoin her Band husband. If Rondl's army succeeded in driving the Monsters back, Tangt would help spread the news and rally more support for the continuing effort among the Bands. If Rondl failed, possibly getting disbanded himself, she would wait safely until recalled to her human host, then make her report. She would give the Ancient Site—or so she would think—to the Solarians, in the hope that they would spare the Bands.

  Rondl hoped his lie to Tangt would not create more mischief than the worst application of the truth might have. He simply wasn't sure he had done the right thing, ethically or practically. Yet he was unwilling to correct the lie; that might be a worse mistake. So—he had better succeed in driving back the Monsters his way.

  He made the rendezvous. Cirl was there. Suddenly he was doubly glad to see her. She was the one he wanted, not a Monster in Band guise—not even one like Tangt.

  "When I returned to Maze Mountain, you were gone," she flashed. "Others reported you had left with an orange female, so I concluded she had arrived. What did you discuss?"

  "She wants to give the Ancient Site to the Monsters, trusting that they will then leave us alone. But she agreed first to let me try to fight off the Monsters. We might make it work this time."

  "That was all she wanted?"

  "That was all she got. She has gone back to her husband, to wait."

  Cirl seemed satisfied. "I talked to Proft. He says he knows of no precedent, but believes that an alien in Band host should be able to join the Viscous Circle if he disbands while in that host, and if he really wants to join the Circle."

  "If he has faith," Rondl said regretfully.

  "Yes. So you can join—if you really want to. Proft says he believes individual Bands have to find the way there, and the way can be found if the will is sufficient. So the only ones who get lost are those who do not want to join."

  Rondl had no response. Proft's reasoning was circular: failure meant the desire to fail, rather than any other theoretical reality. If no Bands reached Nirvana, it was because none wanted to. Rondl himself did want to achieve the Viscous Circle, but he did not believe in it. His capacity for self-delusion had been shrinking recently. It was best for him to let the matter be moot.

  They got to work on the reorganization of their army. The partial success of the defense of Moon Glow had attracted wide attention; it had shown that it was possible to resist the devastating alien intrusion without violating the fundamental Band nature. Rondl's message had been spreading: the Monsters had to be stopped, or Band culture would disappear.

  This time Rondl planned more ambitiously. He wanted not just to slow the Monster advance, but to roll it back—not merely to retain Moon Fair, but to recover Moon Glow. He did not inform them of the significance of Moon Glow, because the news might somehow leak to the Monsters. The Bands knew the Site was there, but did not realize that it was the Monsters' objective. So Rondl merely listed Moon Glow as the Band's own next major objective in the course of reversing the invasion.

  They set up much as they had before. But this time the Bands were concentrated in an area that vaguely resembled a conventional Ancient Site. They carried metallic ores from elsewhere on the moon to this site, each
Band drawing as much as he or she could carry magnetically and depositing it in the pattern Rondl indicated. They did not know why, and Rondl only told them that he believed this would attract the Monsters.

  A giant circle formed, obviously artificial, suggestive of the surface aspect of a deep construction. In the center the Bands formed a mound of similar ore, with passages leading into it, and cylindrical artifacts half buried in sand. Rondl hoped these cylinders would be taken for Ancient artifacts and transported to the command ships with incautious haste.

  They were still at work, perfecting the trap, as the Monster fleet arrived. There were more ships this time, and they set up more carefully, evidently determined to prevent any repetition of the difficulties encountered in the conquest of Moon Glow. Monsters did not like to have their schedules interrupted.

  Rondl tried to intercept one of the laser communication beams between ships, but this time the Monsters were using a multiple-band scrambler, with bits and pieces of messages being routed by lasers of several types and locations and intensities; there was no way for a single Band to intercept more than disconnected fragments. Some Monster technician had been very clever.

  The search pattern proceeded smoothly; there were only token problems. Moon Fair was for the most part an uninteresting body, to Monsters. It had almost no atmosphere, and there was no evidence here of prior civilization (apart from the one just manufactured), nor was there current native life extant. It was just a barren world, covered with extinct volcanoes, evaporated seas, meteorite craters, mountains, anemic dust storms, and thin films of ice. During its warm cycles the atmosphere thickened, which was when most of the slow weathering took place; in the cool cycles Moon Fair was virtually timeless. This happened to be a warm time; or perhaps the Monsters had timed their occupation accordingly, since they preferred warmth and atmosphere.

  Bands were able to traverse Moon Fair freely at any time, for it had a fine pattern of suitably magnetic lines and a number of naturally reflective surfaces that were convenient for conversation. It was called Fair because it was fair as seen from space; it had high albedo, and its reflected light was used for muted communication. All Bands found Moon Fair pretty, regardless; but its symbolism as the last property before Planet Band lent it special significance now. This was where the stand had to be made—and thousands of Bands understood this, though the term "stand" itself was opaque to them. Bands never stood; they floated in place. But the stand had to be made the right way, for Rondl knew that the Bands would never be true warriors. Only he himself, a Monster in Band form, could truly fight.