Suddenly Melody froze. She had peeked into an alcove in which some electronic equipment had been set up.
It was the retransfer unit, supposedly destroyed in the shuttle sabotage blast. She had been instructed in its use, back on Planet Outworld, because of the importance of her mission. There was no question about its identity; there was only one such unit in the fleet.
Captain Boyd had to have known the unit was safe. Why had he deceived her? Had he also salvaged the mattermitter?
Abruptly the noise stopped. Melody looked around nervously. Had one of the magnets destroyed the other?
Slammer shot into view. His, colors were dulled, but he seemed to be in reasonable health. "So you outbanged your opponent," Melody said. "Congratulations. What next?"
The magnet dodged toward the hall through which they had come.
"Time to go home, it seems," Melody remarked. "Didn't seem like much of a relaxation for you, though."
They returned through the passages, Melody verifying her memory of the route. Now she had a special reason to know the way! The other magnet must have been assigned to guard the retransfer unit—it was certainly valuable enough to warrant that!—and somehow Slammer had known. And had shown her.
Why? Why should the magnet care? It didn't quite make sense. A Solarian or Mintakan might have done it because of her interest, in appreciation for what she had done in the hullside fiasco, but the magnets had evinced no signs of such sentiments.
Could Slammer have acted on the Captain's orders? But Dash could have told her directly. Why go through the charade of deceiving her?
Melody shook her head as they arrived back at her cabin. It was tempting to draw easy conclusions, but she was too old and experienced to do that. She lacked sufficient information.
But it certainly made for marvelous speculations!
Melody reassembled the manual Cluster Tarot deck thoughtfully. She did not use the elegant cubic deck Dash had given her; that was too precious to share with strangers, and there was always the risk of breaking the delicate mechanism. Suppose some dolt dropped it on the deck while shake-shuffling?
But the manual deck sufficed. She had just identified yet another hostage. That brought the total to nine—of nine tested.
Was the entire upper-officer cadre of this ship hostage, except for the high-Kirlian Captain himself? What a nest of subversion she had shuttled into! And back on Imperial Outworld they didn't know.
So many hostages! Could one of them have salvaged the retransfer unit, planted the sabotage bomb, and then made a false report to the Captain? That seemed likely. But that meant the retransfer unit was under the control of the hostages—hardly a reassuring situation!
Could the hostages know about her? No, for if they had been aware of the threat she posed to them, they would have acted against her before this.
Slammer moved closer to her, now that she was alone. It was his way of asking for attention. That provided her with one reason she had not been bothered: she had a very able bodyguard!
Melody was becoming more adept at playing the game of twenty questions, as Yael described it. In moments she had identified the magnet's concern.
He needed to take another walk.
They used a different route, but ran into the same type of wooden barrier. She rolled Slammer through it with dispatch. She was getting a fair picture of the geography of the inner labyrinth of the ship, though that seemed to be regarded as a military secret.
As before, this was the off-shift for the majority of the officers, so there were few circulating. Also, she now realized, Slammer selected the route to avoid people. His mission, such as it was, was his own secret.
The other magnet was hovering at the far side of the wooden passage. "Ouch!" Melody said, rendering the human equivalent of a chord of alarm. "Must we go through this again?" But she decided not to interfere. If Slammer and the other magnet got their kicks by bashing each other....
But this time there was no banging. Instead, Slammer moved aside, and the smaller magnet came close. Melody concealed her alarm. "What can I do for you, Slimmer?" she inquired brightly of the stranger.
A much smaller object circled the strange magnet, like a satellite around its primary. It hovered right before Melody.
Suddenly, like a splendid symphony of meaning, it burst upon her: a baby magnet! Slammer had had a tryst with his lady-friend, Slimmer, and now they had offspring. "Hello, Beanball," she said.
The mother-magnet withdrew. Slammer indicated the barrier.
"So you just wanted to see your bud," Melody murmured. "Well, I'm glad I was able to help, even if it was contrary to regulations. Here I thought you two were fighting!"
Yael laughed. "Slimmer got banged up!"
Again, Melody had to delve for the interpretation. A Solarian bang or bash was an old-style party at which too-free leeway was fostered by consumption of mind-affecting substances. The kind of thing she might have been involved in, had the hullside emergency not interrupted it. Thus a female could get impregnated: banged up. With magnets, the banging was literal; it was their mode of copulation.
"Or maybe balled," Yael added.
Balled: reference to the Solarian male's reproductive apparatus. "Where do you pick up all this information?" Melody inquired teasingly.
"What information?"
The girl did not even know the derivation of her terms! Melody had been drawing on her own knowledge and Tarot insights to understand the Solarian situation. "Never mind. We'd better go home." Aloud she said: "Come on, Slammer. We'll visit again when you want to. Goodbye, Beanball."
But the little magnet hovered close. When Melody put her arms around Slammer to start him down the hall, Beanball remained in orbit about them.
"Now, wait," Melody protested. "Once we cross the barrier, you can't return to your mother, Beanball. You'd better stay here."
The ball did not go. "Slammer, can you explain—?"
Then she realized: The little magnet was too new to travel on his own power. He was controlled by the fields of his parents. He had gone to the father when the mother had departed, probably to resume her guard duty before some officer checked on it. The presence of the baby would be certain evidence of dereliction of duty. Slammer was better able to conceal and protect his offspring. So he had come, summoned by some magnetic communication, to assume his familial responsibility.
Melody sighed. "Very well. I enabled this to occur; I must carry through." Feeling a bit jealous, as she had never gotten to raise a bud of her own, she picked up Slammer and walked down the wooden hall.
Beanball hovered before them, held firmly by the large magnet's field. Slammer could not move himself here, but he could still act strongly on any metal in the immediate vicinity.
At the barrier she set Slammer down and let him roll to the foot of the hollow. Beanball remained poised in air, not affected by the rotation of the larger form. Very precise magnetic control! At the far end of the barrier they resumed normal motion. Soon, unobserved, they were back at the cabin.
But Melody discovered her responsibilities had only begun. Beanball needed to be fed, and could neither forage for itself nor report to the refueling station for a handout. It was plain that the human officers did not know of the little magnet's existence—and should not be informed. Melody had seen no other little magnets; obviously the wood barriers were intended to segregate the sexes and prevent inconvenient trysts. Magnets were indisputably loyal to their masters, but their primary loyalty had to be to their own kind, especially their children. That was the nature of any sapient or near-sapient species. Culture could be fostered only by close parent-offspring ties. The magnets obviously had a culture of their own, and interpersonal ties—which the officers of this cluster fleet chose to ignore or suppress.
Melody did not believe in slavery. The situation of the magnets made her increasingly uncomfortable. She could not blame this on the hostages, for they were obviously carrying on a tradition that was well established in t
he fleet. Captain Boyd himself had his magnet, and the Captain did not object to the system.
Well, she objected! At such time as she acquired the power of decision, she would free the magnets and give them self-determination. But at the moment she hardly had control of her own life.
So she kept the secret, and helped provide for the baby. She visited the magnet dispensary and acted like a foolish girl, asking for a big chunk of coal as a souvenir. It was against policy, but a little heaving of her healthy bosom caused the man in charge to overlook policy. She took the chunk to her cabin, and watched Slammer pound a fragment of it to dust. Beanball floated through this dust, guided by his father's field, and sucked it in through almost invisibly small vents.
Then Melody picked Beanball up and set him in the nestbox she and Yael had fashioned. Yael, of course, was thrilled with the whole thing, and proved to be quite helpful with the mundane details. She cleaned up the films of ash that formed in the nest, the magnet's waste product, and labored to locate usable metals for Beanball to ingest and grow on.
Melody appreciated these services. She tended to get bored with the routines of daily existence, and she had more philosophical matters on which to dwell—such as how much of the segment fleet was infiltrated by hostages?
Still, it was a novel development. She had set out to gain the loyalty of a magnet—and had become foster-mother to a little magnet. Some bearing that had on the situation!
8
Skot of Kade
COUNCIL INITIATED PARTICIPATING * / :: oo
:: where is dash? ::
*indisposed*
:: require election of new leadership the bird has been stalling ::
*there have been cautions a resistance movement has been discovered in segment etamin this could have caused much trouble dash feels that premature action can negate the effort, as it did in the prior case*
:: the prior case was under dash coordination! a thousand years were lost by that bungling! put the issue: new leadership now ::
*concurrence?*
SILENCE
:: (fools!) ::
Llume the Undulant succeeded in bringing in another client. They were getting harder to fetch now, as the cooperative ones had been accounted for first.
This was a young, handsome officer, a mere 0-3 lieutenant, lowest in the command section of the ship. His aura was in the range of forty to fifty.
"I am Skot of Kade," he said formally. "Major Llume of Spica requested me to attend."
Melody smiled and leaned forward enticingly. She had her most effective outfit on: a front curvature that fairly popped out the eyeballs of the average male Solarian, and a posterior tautness that made him pop further down. She'd have to be careful not to overdo these effects with so young a man, lest it distort the reading. The cards were adept at reflecting emanations of lust.
Sure enough, Skot gawked and reddened slightly. "Do you understand the nature of the Tarot?" Melody inquired, shrugging so that less cleavage showed.
"Some. I understand you've been doing readings on all the men. They've talked about it, some."
"I'll bet!" Yael muttered. "They talked about who could see farthest between two breasts." But she seemed pleased. Female objection to male perception was never very deep.
"I hope they were satisfied with what they perceived," Melody said aloud.
"Oh, yes!" Then he flushed a bit more. "That is—they found it very interesting. The Tarot, I mean. Views, revelations... uh...."
"Of course. The Tarot is fascinating." Melody could not resist flexing the muscles of one shoulder to make the mammary on that side twitch. She was playing a game— but the irony was that behind the cynical manipulation of the flesh, she rather liked this innocent-seeming young man. There were differences of personality among hostages. In fact, they were just about like other transferees, except for their alien-galaxy culture and their need to hide this. Were the two galaxies not at war, she would have been able to get along very well with them.
She reviewed the cards, then gave them to him to shuffle. Finally she laid them out, providing a facile spot analysis for each card that had nothing to do with her real observations. She was having trouble with Skot's responses; they were subtly wrong at key spots. Was she losing her touch?
As the reading concluded, she realized: She had been anticipating the response pattern of an Andromedan transfer from Spheres *, —, /, ::, or oo. Skot had not matched any of these. If some of the hostages were from unknown lesser Spheres, she would have extraordinary difficulty identifying them. But she finally concluded that this man was not a hostage. In fact, he was not even a transfer. He was exactly what he seemed to be: a young, friendly, naive Solarian male of high-Kirlian aura.
He was perhaps the only nonhostage among the officers of the Ace of Swords. Apart from Llume and the Captain, of course.
"Skot—may I call you Skot?—will you come to my cabin for a moment?" Melody said, raising an eyebrow at him.
"Miss Dragon, I really can't—"
"Yael."
"Miss Yael—it isn't—I mean—"
"Please. There is something important I want to show you."
He swallowed. "Oh. Uh, I'll wait here. You can bring it out."
"Unlikely." She took him by the arm and guided him from the lounge.
He balked at her cabin door. "Miss Yael, you don't understand. I have a girl planetside—"
"Slammer, please escort this man inside my cabin."
The magnet hesitated. This was a confusing directive, as Skot obviously was not attacking her and so did not need to be moved. And the secret of the baby magnet was inside.
The man became even more nervous. "All right, miss. I'll talk to you inside. But it won't—"
As the door closed behind them, Melody's manner changed. "We cannot be overheard here, Skot. Slammer has made certain. Here's why." And she uncovered the nest and lifted out Beanball.
Skot gaped. "A baby magnet!"
"Now you know I stand in violation of ship's regulations," Melody said. "I need some help in providing for this—"
"I cannot help you! The rules of the ship...."
"Will you turn me in?"
He gulped again. "Miss, I'm sorry, but I have to. You know that."
Melody let a strap slip artfully down one shoulder, baring a fair expanse of convex flesh. "I'd be exceedingly grateful if you would not."
His jaw firmed. "I'm sorry. Had you really intended to keep this secret, you should not have shown me."
He was quite right of course. But Slammer, recognizing the implied threat, moved, jamming the officer against the wall. "Slammer—easy!" Melody cried.
Meanwhile, Yael had caught on to some of what was transpiring. "What are you doing?" she demanded. "You can't threaten him; he's an officer!"
Melody ignored the inner voice, though she found herself sickened at her own actions. She was not cut out for this!
She controlled her voice. "Slammer will crush you if I suggest you mean me harm. He's not so stupid as not to know the harm your report could do. And if he got the notion you meant his baby harm...."
Sweat beaded Skot's forehead, but he did not relent. "I am loyal to my ship. I must be honest. I must report. If you—if you do this, there will be an investigation, and the magnet will be discovered anyway."
Maybe somewhere there were females who were natural conspirators, who actually liked this sort of thing. Melody knew she was not, and never would be that kind. She was doing this badly, hating it, disgusted with herself— still she had to proceed. "True. Unless I hid the magnet and told them you had tried to rape me. I have reason to think that Captain Boyd would believe me."
Skot closed his eyes, knowing enough of the ship's skuttlebutt to comprehend the probable rage of the Captain. But his voice did not waver. "I must report. I will not be drawn into a conspiracy."
The man was inflexible! The fear of death was on him but he would not yield a fraction of his honor. Feeling guilty, Melody switched back to sexua
l temptation. "It is such a small thing I ask," she said persuasively. "A few lumps of coal, some bits of metal, a place under your bunk for the baby to hide. No one would know." Now she shrugged the other strap down. The material peeled away from her front, suddenly exposing both mammaries in all their rondure.
Skot turned on her a look of disgust tinged with pity. "No," he whispered.
She dropped the burden. "Slammer, let him go," Melody said. "He is a friend."
The magnet withdrew so suddenly that the man stumbled forward. He caught his balance. "You don't understand. I said—"
"I understand you are an honest man," Melody said, drawing up her dress to cover her mammaries. She was not disappointed, in this case, that their appeal had failed. "You will do what you believe is right, even though you die for it. You are loyal to your galaxy."
He nodded, not trusting her. "You will let me go?"
"Suppose I were to show you that your loyalty is misplaced?"
His eyes narrowed. "You—you're an agent of Andromeda? You brought me here to try to convert me to—?"
Now she could smile. "I'm an agent of Milky Way. Were you aware of my aura?"
"It is very strong, the strongest I've encountered. But—"
"It is the most intense aura in Segment Etamin," Melody told him without pride. "Perhaps in the galaxy. Which is why I was drafted. I came here to overwhelm a hostage. Do you know what a hostage is?"
"No. A kind of transferee, I suppose."
"An involuntary host. One who is controlled by an alien aura against his will, not under the auspices of the Society of Hosts. A normal person who is possessed by an Andromedan."
"I thought that was impossible!"
"So did we all. But Andromeda has had a breakthrough. The hostage is aboard this ship. It can only be overwhelmed by an aura as strong as my own, coordinated with special retransfer apparatus."
"I don't understand," he said. "Why are you breeding magnets, then? Why go out of your way to show it to me, then threaten me? This has nothing to do with your stated mission."
"Because I had to be sure of you without giving away my real motive. In case you turned out to be... corruptible."