Viscous Circle

  The explosions were set off; now Rondl knew that this was not simple Monster mischief, but coordinated seismographic surveying and surface analysis. The high-flying debris from the blasts was spectroscopically analyzed, the patterns of ground vibrations charted. Monsters could learn a great amount in the course of the destruction they wreaked. Yet, because of their too-narrow definitions, they had still managed to miss what they sought. Which was part of the irony of Monsterdom.

  The tanks landed and cruised across the terrain, their sensors alert. They were taking soil and air samples and bouncing radar off the ground. On this mission, the Solarians' assimilation of a planet was informational rather than physical.

  Then the tanks spotted the artificial circle—or perhaps the survey from space had located it and directed the tanks there. Messages radiated madly; Rondl could have intercepted one of these, but there was no point: there were hundreds—too many to change—and in any event, this time he wanted the Monsters' information to travel accurately. Tanks clustered like the flies Rondl remembered from Monsterland. The bait had been taken!

  Larger ships landed. Monsters in Monster suits emerged, proceeding on their gross, fat, flesh-encased-bone limbs to the circle. More samples were taken, more visual, sonic, and electronic surveys made. Individuals proceeded semi-cautiously to the central mound, and entered the tunnels.

  Soon they emerged, hauling the cylinders placed there for them. Their excitement was manifest: had they found genuine, precious Ancient artifacts?

  Until this point the Bands had not interfered with the Monsters' activity. A few Bands had been taken aboard the ships, but they had lain quiescent, awaiting the signal. The Monsters had not discovered the extent of the Band resistance, but had realized that randomly caught Bands had played a role in the foul-ups of the occupation of Moon Glow. Perhaps they likened these Bands to insects in the machinery, causing short circuits merely by their presence. So now they guarded against such insect infestation, and were alert for the Ringers on this planet. But some Bands were camouflaged as metallic boulders, and others as slabs of metal; these had bypassed the Monsters' suspicions.

  When the cylinders were securely aboard the command ships, Rondl gave final instructions, then flew toward the largest Monster vessel. Cirl had wanted to come with him, but he demurred. "This may become unpleasant. I have Monster temperament; I will not disband under the pressures of the moment. But you would have trouble. Wait for me in space; guide the other Bands when the need arises. I love you." And with that she had to be content.

  He positioned himself as close to a shuttle as he could without being detected, and waited. The signal came on schedule. Bands flying all around the moon relayed the flash at the Monster vessels. Every visual aperture was bathed with the message; every Monster pickup transmitted it to the interior. NOW.

  The Monsters noted the flash, but did not comprehend its significance. It was not blinding, not even particularly bright, to their orbs. It was merely a blink, a highlight, as from the facet of a diamond, passing quickly. But the Bands in the ships were alert for this flash and, having rehearsed for it, knew what to do now.

  Bands exerted magnetic forces. Shuttles veered and missed their assignments. Onboard computers malfunctioned, sending out spurious information. Messages became garbled. All the mischief that had plagued the siege of Moon Glow now descended abruptly on this expedition. Before, the Bands' efforts had been largely experimental; now they knew what they were doing. Rondl had explained computers and drilled Bands on what circuits to locate and modify. From the Monsters' viewpoint, everything had suddenly gone wrong.

  In the confusion, Rondl shot into the ship's opening receiver bay ahead of the shuttle. He exerted his magnetism on the control circuit of the interior airlock, and it admitted him. How much more he could do, now that he had his memory! He knew how Solarian ships operated; they were no longer mysteries to him. He knew that a little bit of magnetism applied to key places that could work marvels: the unlocking of pressure hatches, the changing of control switches, the distortion of computer functioning. Soon he was in the pressurized interior, the residential and control part of the ship, joining the Bands who had been brought there as camouflaged specimens.

  No Monster noticed what was happening to the precious Ancient-artifact cylinders. They shivered and fractured, falling apart. The individual slices were—more Bands. The Kratch-resistant tubes had now found service as Monster-deceiving tubes. Hundreds of Bands now occupied the command ships—and they knew exactly what to do there.

  They took up stations beside the life-support and emergency facility substations. Abruptly the lights went out. Monsters cried out in alarm, stumbling as the big ships gyrated erratically. The atmosphere within the ships thinned, causing the Monsters to gasp for oxygen. Messages appeared on communications screens: SURRENDER. The configuration was meaningless to the Bands, but Rondl had assured them it would have impact on Monsters.

  Unfortunately, the Solarians did not heed the directive. They fought like the Monsters they were, appallingly physical. Some dived for the life-support controls, others for the emergency facilities. Most equipment had emergency manual override controls, and these came into play now. Magnetism could not affect these the way it could the small currents of computers.

  The Bands, unprepared for the ferocity of the reaction, gave way. The lights came on again—and now the Monsters were alert. They saw the Bands hovering. "Ringers!" one screamed; Rondl could not hear the sound, but knew it was present.

  "Get out of reach!" Rondl flashed, using the convenient light. He had hoped to capture the ship in one swoop; now there would be a complicated fight—which was exactly why he had not wanted Cirl aboard. The unexpected had struck. "Hide! But keep thinning the atmosphere, and interrupt the lights again." For there were other places to interrupt the chains, places the Monsters had not yet covered.

  They tried, but the Monsters were too quick and savage. The Solarians reached their awful bone-filled limbs out and smashed their digit-splintered hands into the Bands. Disbanding followed. Soon the number of Bands in this ship had halved, and the survivors had little chance. Rondl was sure the Bands in the other ships were faring no better.

  The communications screen flashed on. The top extremity of a Monster appeared thereon. Its atmosphere-imbibing orifice gaped, showing the white chew-teeth, the most salient characteristic of Monsterdom. The Trugd had teeth, and the Kratch had similar grinders. Whatever ship that image emanated from had surely been recovered by the Monsters.

  Another Monster face appeared in the screen, with a different background image. That meant another ship lost. This effort of resistance, like the last, was failing; it was only inconveniencing the Monsters, not undoing their control. The brutes were all fighters, and could not be contained by the relatively delicate devices of the peaceful Bands. The effort to prevent the seizure of Moon Fair was not succeeding.

  No! Maybe Bands could not do it, but Rondl was not a Band. He had the Monster fighting reflexes. He refused to let his major effort fail like this! The other ships might be lost, but this ship was going to pass into Band control! "Avoid all Monsters!" he flashed. "Fly erratically. Follow my directives!"

  The surviving Bands responded. They no longer had to think for themselves—and such thinking was now dangerous. They were being chased by Monsters, and it was best to let the Monster Band think for them. That decision alleviated the pressure to disband.

  "All green Bands join me," Rondl flashed. "All blue Bands concentrate on the communications apparatus. Foul it up, prevent meaningful signals from getting through." Bands were colored, but not color-coded; he was using color purely as an emergency convenience. "But all Bands must stay clear of the Monsters. Do not allow them to touch you; take constant evasive action."

  The blue Bands clustered around the vision screen and its connections. The picture of the Monsters blanked out. This sort of equipment was especially vulnerable to magnetic influence, and no manual control could circum
vent it. The ship could no longer receive orders from outside.

  "Black Bands orient on the Alien life-support systems," Rondl continued flashing. "Trace their feeder circuits. Locate the inputs for sedating chemicals—sleepgas or similar." But of course the Bands had no notion of such things; very few chemicals had any effect on Bands. "At least identify any peculiarities of the system; I will examine what you find. Have no fear of actually hurting the aliens; sleepgas will merely make them passive." Rondl knew that his recruits, simply would not commit the ultimate violence of killing. They would thin the air to make the Monsters uncomfortable; that was as far as they could go. Otherwise it would have been possible to put this and all the other ships completely out of commission by opening the pressure-relief valves and letting all the air escape to space.

  But the Monsters were already pressing them hard. The Bands needed to create distractions. "Yellow Bands—play tag with the Monsters," Rondl ordered. "As with the Kratch. Swoop near, then away. Orbit their top extremities if you can. This will aggravate them. Do this as much as possible without getting so close they are able to touch you. It is a game; be alert and clever, not concerned."

  The yellow Bands commenced their grim game. They hovered near individual Monsters, retreating quickly when the creatures made clumsy swipes at them; it was soon apparent that Bands had better reflexes than Monsters did, at least in a situation like this. Yet the lines restricted them. Lines happened to be plentiful here, because of the metal of the ship, but there were gaps here and there. Some Bands were running off lines at crucial moments and getting caught and broken—forcibly disbanded. In time all would be lost.

  "Red Bands, help the yellow Bands," Rondl ordered. "Remember, it's a game; we must show them that we are superior players." If only they would respond to that!

  A black Band was flashing to Rondl. Rondl flew across; for straight-line flying there was no problem at all. The machinery of the ship used so much power that it generated many lines on its own.

  The black Band had located a unit connected to the atmosphere generation system. It seemed to be an oxygen activator—an artificial enzyme used to promote the effect of oxygen in the Monster system. In his Band form, Rondl found it hard to recognize the unit for certain, but he remembered it from his pre-Band experience. It was a backstop in case a ship in deep space ran short of oxygen, as could happen because of a meteoric holing, or as the result of enemy action. The enzyme enabled personnel to function on reduced oxygen, and could thus extend a limited supply by as much as fifty per cent.

  No point in giving the Monsters any of this right now! He wanted them ineffective, not at peak efficiency despite the slight oxygen deprivation they were under.

  But Rondl hesitated by the valve, his mind jogged by something elusive. There were a couple of contraindications to the use of this enzyme, he vaguely recalled. The Monster body's fundamental vitality tended to be depleted after extended operation with it, necessitating a convalescence of a similar period; that could be awkward for them in combat. And if it was used when the oxygen content of the ship's air was normal, the effect was cumulatively intoxicating. Usually this was not a serious complication, of course; but things could get awkward when discipline had to be maintained. There were stories—

  Intoxicating! That gave Rondl an idea. Bands of course had no notion of the nature of Monster intoxication; Band minds were always clear. But changes of consciousness—yes, indeed!

  Rondl flew close to the enzyme unit's trigger mechanism. He exerted his magnetism to reach down into the proper relay, and activated it. That sent the chemical into the air circulation system; soon, Rondl hoped, it would affect every Monster aboard.

  "Allow the atmosphere to return to normal content," Rondl flashed to the black Bands. "But keep that valve open."

  He flew back to the main action. Now he had some new notions. This could become spectacular! "Blue Bands, disrupt the food synthesizers." Again he had to explain, for Bands used no food. So he revised his terms, describing the operation of the machines and encouraging the blue Bands to produce as much quantity and variety of substance as possible.

  Soon solids and liquids and gels were pouring from the machine orifices, out over the floor, getting in the Monsters' way, squishing under bone-filled leg extremities. Angry as well as dizzy from the beginning effect of the enzyme, some of the Monsters picked up what Rondl recognized as pseudo skinless tomatoes and soft-shelled eggs and beverage bulbs and hurled them at the tormenting yellow Bands. Naturally they missed; Bands were excellent at dodging flying objects. Red and yellow gunk splattered across the ship's control mechanisms. Now this showed promise!

  "Taunt the Monsters, positioning yourselves between them and equipment, or between one Monster and another," Rondl directed.

  They did so, getting into the spirit of this game. Sure enough, the tipsy Monsters began throwing food at the baiting Bands—and hitting each other instead. A Monster female got splattered on the back of the head by a cup of chocolate pudding; she whirled in outrage, swept up a meringue pie, and shoved it into the face part of the male Monster nearest her.

  Now the Bands were able to withdraw and simply watch in growing amazement. The Monsters, true to their nature, were indulging in an orgy of food abuse. Ripe paper-shelled gourds bounced off the skull bones of standing Monsters; beverage bulbs exploded under trampling foot bones. Mock-lobster dishes clamped their decorative red claws on Monsters' stray finger bones. Bursting baked potatoes bombarded the posteriors of Monsters bending to pick up more ammunition; sausage links wrapped around limbs and necks. Well-sauced spaghetti slid down the front of a prim female Monster, outside and inside her uniform blouse; she let forth a scream that made the walls vibrate and began laying violently about her with a handful of carrots. Carbonated beverage fluid bubbled over the trouser section of the admiral who had once commanded this vessel, and fizzed into his underclothing. The admiral did a dance of discomfort, anger, and confusion, his mouth-orifice shaped into an O fully as round as a Band. Then he dived for a load of cream-filled eclairs just emerging from a machine, and commenced target practice of his own.

  "They are distracted," Rondl flashed, satisfied. "Return to the ship-guidance mechanism. Direct the ship toward deep space, away from the Monster-controlled ships."

  The Bands went to work, experimenting with the unfamiliar mechanisms. They could affect the magnetic circuits—but control was quite different from disruption. It was far easier to prevent the Monsters from using the ship than it was to use it themselves. The ship lurched, seeming as drunken as the Monsters within it. But slowly it steadied and moved in the desired manner.

  A Monster head appeared in the neglected communication screen, its orifices shaping into a scowl. "Block that transmission!" Rondl flashed. Several Bands flew to the screen, and it blanked out again.

  But Rondl felt insecure. The Monsters of this ship had been nullified, but this effect was temporary; when they recovered sobriety, they would cause trouble. He was also uncertain what the other Monsters in the other ships would do. He needed to check on that.

  Under Rondl's direction they got the incoming messages in laser form, bypassing the clumsy screen. They ignored the scrambled, multifrequency inputs and accepted only non-coded ones. Now they could intercept a certain percentage of messages without alerting the food-throwing Monsters.

  The news was not good. "...final warning. Turn about and return to assigned orbit, or we shall open fire in nine minutes."

  Trouble! Individual Bands could avoid the explosive shells of the Monsters in space, but this ship could not. If the ship were destroyed, they would all be disbanded with it. They had to flee the ship immediately.

  No! Again Rondl reacted like a Monster, not a Band. He had captured the ship; he would fight violently to hold it.

  Except that his Bands would not fight in this fashion—and even if they would, they would not be able to handle the complex requirements of space combat. Only Monsters could fight Monster-fashion. On
ly Rondl himself could do it—and he could not do it alone.

  Did he have to? Why not extend the disciplinary system he had set up for the training of Bands? The others did not have to fight, or to understand space mechanics; all they had to do was follow simple directions. Aim this tube... connect this circuit... now! And a shell could be on its way to intersect another vessel. Only he, Rondl, would need to grasp the whole.

  But he had very little time. The other ships were about to fire on this one. "All available Bands proceed to defensive apparatus," he flashed urgently. It was an anomaly of Monster nomenclature that the most aggressive and offensive paraphernalia were termed defensive. In this case, that fiction was useful.

  The Bands flocked to the apparatus and began mastering its circuitry. They were not aware of the overall situation; each worked on a particular aspect, so that individual circuits would be responsive to Rondl's will.

  In this manner Rondl got the weapons of the ship functional, and oriented on the pursuing vessels. When the firing commenced, Rondl fired back. His weapons did not have good aim, but at least the action put the Monsters on notice that they could not attack with impunity. Maybe they would desist, and he would succeed in absconding with this ship. What an advantage it would be to have a weapon equivalent to those of the Monsters! He could use the ship to fight, and to train Bands, and—

  And convert the Bands into a technological, warring species like the Solarians? He always came up against that horror! What good would such a progression be? To win this war was to lose it!