"What's needed is something that can really stop the Monsters—like a huge magnetic field that bollixes up all Monster equipment."
"Nothing like that here," Rondl said regretfully. "This technology can't affect Monster equipment at all. Only small-mass, magnetic-sensitive creatures like the Bands can use it. Monsters would require centuries to gear to this refinement, and even then they could never use it to transport anything Monster-size. Mail service is about its best Monster application."
"You mean Monsters can't actually use this Site?" she asked, amazed.
"Not to enhance Monster power. This is strictly a small-mass technology, like the magnetic lines the Bands have already derived. For Bands it's wonderful, and scientifically it's as sophisticated as anything we know of; for Monsters it just doesn't work."
"Because they're Monsters," she said.
"Because they're Monsters. Fittingly."
"But then the Monsters have no reason to take this Site! This whole invasion is wasted effort for them."
"Ironic, but true. The Monsters will destroy a superior species, commit sapienocide, for something they can't even use. If only they had known it at the outset!" He paused, reflecting. "That must be why the Bellatrixians weren't interested. They surely had located this Site in the course of their dealings with the Bands. They installed these lights, after all. They knew the Site was useless to their kind—to the kind of creature who needs heavy spaceships to travel between planets. That includes the great majority of all sapient species. Any of them who investigated in past centuries or millennia would have discovered this. Only the Solarians bulled ahead without reconnoitering to be certain the Site would be worth their own possible bloodshed."
"So all we need to do is tell the Monsters, and they'll go home. Not because they care for the preservation of the Bands, but because they never spend energy without promise of immediate material gain."
"I think so!" he agreed, realizing. "We should have done it your way at the outset. All this mischief with Sphere Bellatrix, all the slaughter of Bands could have been avoided."
"You'd better inform the Monsters now," Tangt said.
"No good. I have ruined my credibility by lying to my employer. You will have to tell them the truth; you never knowingly deceived them. Their interrogation will exonerate you, and so they will believe you."
"Perhaps so," she flashed after a pause. "But they will suspect what I suspect. You lied to me before; why should I believe you now?"
"Because I'm telling the truth now!"
"How convenient. If this Site were a bonanza for Monsters, would you tell me that? Do you expect me to shill for you a second time? You know the truth, whatever it is. Only a direct interrogation of you will convince them—or me." Her flashes had an adamantine sparkle of anger.
He had ruined his credibility with her, too. He had, in effect, scorned her, though their objective was the same, and he knew females could react very strongly to this sort of thing. If only he had been sure of her before! "At this stage, seeing the Site useless to the Bands in the existing circumstance, I'd have to turn it over to the Monsters regardless. But as it happens—"
"I trusted you before, and was deceived. I can't afford to trust you again. You must be up to something, and I'm afraid whatever it is will cost the Bands a lot more than the truth."
What infernal mischief his original lie was making! Rondl heartily wished he had stayed with the truth. "What could I be up to?"
"I'm working on that. You want me to tell the Monsters something that will bring them right here in force. You refuse to go to them yourself, despite the fact that they could have the truth from you as readily as from me, using special interrogatory techniques. Now why should that be? What could I do that you could not?"
"You could bring them here to see for themselves much faster than I could! Deep interrogation takes time. You—"
"Since you obviously think in terms of traps, and the nature of the trap is in your mind, not mine—"
"It's no trap!" Rondl protested. "I just want the Monsters to see that there's nothing for them in System Band, so they'll leave the Bands alone."
"So you say. Now suppose this Site has the capacity, as some Ancient Sites do, to explode like a nova, destroying all creatures in its vicinity, and the entire Monster contingent is within range—"
"It has no such capacity! These magnetic circuits are physically very weak. They can hardly even be detected by—"
"Or a more subtle radiation, that wipes out all local auras—"
"How can I convince you?" he flashed desperately. "I'm telling you the truth this time! I deeply regret the lie I told before, and I renounce my Monster nature that led me to it. I only want to save the Bands by showing the Monsters that they have no use for this Site!"
"After the way you deceived me before—"
"I should never have done that! I will never deceive anyone again! It's an abomination on my conscience!"
"And let me seduce you," she continued furiously. "Or was it vice versa? You performed at the behest of your wife, of all things! How can I ever trust you again?"
"But we share the will to preserve the Bands—"
"Do we? I have been trying all along to save the Bands, and I thought you were, too. But now I must wonder—"
Rondl saw that he had hopelessly alienated her, and he could hardly blame her. The situation had passed beyond the redemption of apology. The suspicion of her that had caused him, for what he had deemed at the time to be sufficient reason—ah, the arrogance of ends and means!—to lie to Tangt—that suspicion now clouded his own credibility. There was nothing he could say that would convince her of his sincerity. She was angry; she did not want to be convinced. She had been doubly deceived, and was determined not to let it happen again. In her position, he would feel the same.
Yet what would happen to the Bands if news of the Site's specific location and nature did not reach the Monsters soon—news from someone the Monsters were prepared to trust? The Monsters would proceed to Planet Band, perhaps doubling their ferocity in reaction to the recent deception. For the diversion of the Bellatrixian incident would not last long; the two Spheres would already be getting in touch with each other through Galactic diplomatic channels and negotiating a truce. So there would be no further bar to the destruction of the Bands.
Could Rondl go to the Monsters himself, and allow them to destroy him with deep-probe interrogation? Yes, that would do it—but such a procedure took time, many days or weeks, as layer beneath layer of the subject's consciousness was peeled away and analyzed. The sapient mind was horrendously complex! Meanwhile the invasion of System Band would proceed, since the Monsters would suspect that his proffering of interrogation was merely a ruse to give the Bands time. By the time they verified the truth from his mind, the Bands would be gone. Tangt could convince them much faster, because she never had intentionally deceived them; her conscience was clean, and her probing could be accomplished in hours, perhaps minutes—in time for the Monsters to go to the Site and ascertain that it was exactly as Tangt said, before they proceeded to the destruction of the artifacts of the Planet.
He had to convince Tangt! Yet how?
Then it came to him. The Bands had an answer, for those capable of assimilating it. "You and I are Monsters," he told Tangt. "We envy the values of the Bands, but do not share them. We dream of peace in life, and fulfillment in death, but never actually grasp those dreams. Because we are what we are. A swine cannot wear a pearl; a Monster cannot be perfect. For us there is no peace, no fabulous realization of afterlife—"
"And no truth," she agreed bitterly.
"Very little truth. We believe in self-interest, not in truth. Our ethical framework has all the esthetic appeal of an eyeball fairly bursting with fluid. Only when we are ready to die for a cause can we truly be believed."
"Perhaps so. The Bands die for their beliefs."
"I am ready to die to save the Bands. I admit I don't have much future anyway, yet lif
e is as precious to me as to any Monster. So my sacrifice will be genuine."
"You're not the suicidal type," she flashed. "You aren't going to convince me of anything by bluffing about something like that."
"Just bring the Monsters to this site," he said. "Believe me about just this much: it is not a trap. Tell them to transfer an electronics expert to another Band host to verify what I have told you about the Site. Explain how I lied to you before. I think they'll let you off."
"Stop this nonsense! I have no intention of—"
"And tell my Solarian wife, Helen, that I'm sorry about her, too. I want her to remarry, to provide a good home for our child."
"You are only annoying me with this blather—"
"For that too, I apologize. You are a better creature than I have been. Farewell."
"Now where are you—"
Rondl willed himself to the proper state, finding it surprisingly easy. His magnetic pattern reversed.
He disbanded.
Chapter 20
Reality
Rondl discovered that consciousness remained. Had his aura somehow taken another host, or returned to his Monster body?
No—he had no familiar perceptions. He could not detect magnetism in the manner of a Band, could not hear in the manner of a Monster, and could neither see nor feel, physically. Yet he was aware of the gravity waves of a large mass, and the diffuse aura of another person.
"Tangt?" he inquired. But no flash issued from him. He seemed to have no lens, neither magnetic not physical. It was as though he was disembodied.
Or disbanded. He had disbanded! Yet how then could there be consciousness?
Rondl mulled that over as he checked and rechecked his situation. He was definitely conscious and definitely massless. He was able to perceive planets and stars and auras indirectly, or perhaps it was directly, without senses; but he perceived little else. He was unaffected by solidity and energy. He could—he did—travel right through the matter of Moon Glow without impediment, noting merely a slight change in his environment. He believed he could move similarly through the center of a star, barely aware of the heat. So: he was indeed disembodied, a ghost—a disbanded aura.
This meant that the mythology of the Bands had, after all, some basis. The aura did survive the loss of the host, at least for a while.
Yet he was not a Band. He did not believe in any of this. How could it affect him?
Well, Cirl had said an alien aura could join the Viscous Circle, if the alien disbanded in Band host and really wanted to join. So the philosophical basis seemed to be there, for what it was worth.
Still...
This could be a dream, a vision. Maybe he had tried to disband, had not succeeded, and now lay inert on the floor of the Ancient Site, inhabiting another nightmare world. If so, he would either wake in due course, or click finally into oblivion. That set of possibilities seemed the more likely.
Tangt's aura remained near. He tried again to communicate with her, but could not. Her aura remained bound to its host, chained to mass, and in that form it could not communicate freely with other auras. It was largely contained, restricted, dependent on the host, as a person became dependent on his spaceship when traveling between planets. That was a different universe.
There was nothing for him here. Even if this was merely a dream taking place while his body died, probably his essence would dissipate soon and he would pass painlessly into nothingness. Yet two things concerned him, even in this state. First, had he succeeded in convincing Tangt and saving the Bands? Second, in what state was Cirl? For in life or death, he wanted the Band society to survive—and he loved Cirl.
Was it possible that for her the rest of the myth had some validity? That she really had found a group soul? What a marvelous thing that would be!
Rondl extended himself, traveling without effort out into deep space. In this dream he made his own rules! He became aware of the Monsters, each of their auras crammed into its gross physical confinement, clustering around the rocky orbit of Moon Dinge like angry hornets. The battle with the Bellatrixians seemed to be abating; he had known that ploy was no more than a temporary diversion.
Then he traveled forward in time, suddenly discovering that he had neither spatial nor temporal limits, and noted how the Monsters abruptly focused on Moon Glow and then vacated the System. Tangt had done it! She had told the Monsters, and they had verified her story and given up this invasion. The Bands were saved!
Now he could expire. His mission had been accomplished. The ideal species would continue. His sacrifice had not been in vain.
Yet he remained. Why? Could—?
He spread out across light-minutes, spatially, searching for what he hardly dared hope for. After all, he was not a believer. The moons and planets of System Band became as pebbles within the immensity of his nonsubstance, tiny interruptions of little account. Size was a physical concept, hardly relating to his present state.
The universe was diffuse, the stars small and far apart. It no longer interested him. Nothing interested him except his quest for Cirl. If she had dissipated, then he had no reason to retain awareness. He could truly extinguish himself; he now realized that he had this ability, too.
The universe was large. The distances between the planets of one system were minuscule compared to the distances between individual stars, and there were billions of stars. He stretched into light-years, finding nothing. The tiny, confined auras of individual living creatures, clustered like maggots on their several little planets, no longer registered. Space went on and on.
Then he sensed something. It was neither a spatial nor a temporal thing; it existed greater than such minor definitions, in a kind of dimension other than whatever he had known—at right angles, as it were, to his universe. It was an encompassing quality vaguely like a sphere, a tremendous and significant something.
It was nonphysical, yet tangible to his present perception. Without vision there was no color, yet there was psychic color. The thing spanned the universe in its fashion, grandly turning, currents within it causing it to shift aspects even as he oriented on it.
Slowly he recognized it. This was a composite of human souls. This was Nirvana, by whatever designation.
So it was true. There was an afterlife.
Rondl found himself being drawn into the mass. This seemed to be where he belonged. Yet there was something missing—
Abruptly he reacted, flinging himself out and away, rejecting this resting-place. He searched for a different something. Through the continuums he went, orienting on—
He found it, with a convection of hope, a radiation of joy: another soul-mass, this one in the general spatial/temporal form of a torus. Its currents evoked its lovely viscosity.
Rondl! Rondl! You found us!
It was the aura of Cirl, jumping toward him, welcoming him—formless, yet recognizable, because she was herself.
Now at last he believed. He knew it was all true, all of what he had taken as mythology. Human Nirvana was real, for those who chose it; the aural afterlife of other species was similarly valid; and the Viscous Circle of the Bands was exactly as represented. They really did have an afterlife, or rather a larger existence, of which the individual life was only a fragment, no more than a planet of the universe—a single aspect amid the infinite variety of the totality.
Cirl had held herself discrete for him, not yet joining the encompassing mass, and now they were together. She had forgiven him his Monster blemishes and trusted in his perfectibility. She had waited because she loved him—and he loved her.
Together they floated toward the joy of the ultimate mergeance, the unity of the Viscous Circle.
Epilogue
As Rondl had seen, the ploy was effective; the Monsters departed System Band. The unique Band culture survived. Rondl and Cirl themselves merged into the ultimate viscosity of the Viscous Circle, sharing their wealths of experience with all the other auras of this group soul, giving it a better awareness of the nature of
alien creatures. In time—though the Circle was essentially timeless—parts of the aura substance that had been theirs were infused into newly conceived Bands, continuing the natural cycle; and these new Bands, though remaining true to the pacifism of their kind, did have a slightly improved tolerance for the nature of Monsters. Future incursions by other sapients into Band space would be handled more realistically, with fewer automatic disbandings. The Bands did finally petition for Galactic recognition as a Sphere, so that future intrusions into their space were less likely. So the fate of Rondl and Cirl was as satisfactory as exists in these continuums.
The fate of the Monsters called Solarians was not as sanguine. Much energy had been expended in the futile quest for the priceless technology of an Ancient Site, and the government of Sphere Sol was now deeply in debt. As a result, the Solarians running the Sphere were at a disadvantage, and political and economic power shifted more rapidly to the Solarian/Polarian combine of Planet Outworld in System Etamin. Within a century Etamin was the dominant force within this Sphere, and the discredited authorities who had sponsored the raid on System Band no longer had power. In this incidental way, the Band episode helped shape the development of an empire. However, it was not an event that the Solarians cared to dignify in their history texts, and its significance was not widely appreciated among them until many centuries had elapsed and new standards of scholarship obtained. The names Ronald and Tanya did not become legend, and the names Rondl, Tangt, and Cirl were unknown.
Ronald's widow, Helen, in due course bore a son. She undertook a new term marriage, which was reputed to be more satisfactory than her first. The boy grew up to be involved in liaison work with non-Solarian sapient species and had a good reputation for competence, integrity, and empathy.
Tanya had brief notoriety for breaking the scandal of Ronald's betrayal, but when the Ancient Site turned out to be useless, she became anonymous. She retained an interest in the culture of the Bands and retired from Transfer service to labor on the Bands' behalf, eventually succeeding in getting their petition recognized, qualifying them as a legal Sphere.