—I feared you would require more convincing,— Dash whirred. —Perhaps I can do it yet.—
Another curtain lifted. A strange creature was unveiled. It was composed of strings and tubes and taut diaphragms, as ungainly a thing as Melody could imagine.
Then with a special shock she identified it. "A Mintakan!" she cried internally. "My own kind!"
Cnom was surprised and disgusted. "You look like that in your natural form? No wonder you transferred out!"
"It is worse than the Dash," Melody agreed ruefully. "A species never recognizes how odd it looks to others until it gets a glance back through transfer. I understand my ancestor Flint was appalled at the sight of naked Solarians when he was in a Polarian host. But every species in the universe has a right to its own existence. That's what I'm fighting to protect."
Cnom subsided, indifferent to the fate of distant Spheres or peculiar creatures.
Melody studied the Mintakan figure more closely. It was an old one, she saw now, with discolored drums, warped strings, and sagging tubing. Hardly a bargain; in fact it seemed near expiration from sheer degeneration. It was female, a spinster, apparently never attractive enough or amenable enough to find a companion for reproduction. It had no Kirlian aura.
—This, in case you did not recognize it,— Dash said,—is not merely a Mintakan host. It is your original body.—
Startled, Melody considered the body a third time. Her aura touched it, and sensed the familiarity. This was, indeed, her original shell. She did not know what to feel.
—We have gone to a great deal of energy-expense to arrange things for you,— Dash said. —If you do not wish to occupy a Dash host, you may return to your own. And to ensure your satisfaction, we have also imported a handsome young male of your kind.— And another Mintakan appeared. His strings were taut, his tubing firm.
During all this adventure, Melody had wanted to return to her own body, to retire in peace, contemplating her Tarot cards so as to wrest a few more precious insights from the deck before she expired. She could live for a long time in transfer, over five Solarian years, but eventually she would have to return to her own body to recharge her aura. And if her Mintakan body should die while she was in transfer, her aura would fade out at a hundred times its normal rate. So by capturing her body, the Andromedans had in a very real sense captured her. The chains, though subtle, were horribly strong.
The projectile cannon disappeared. —I believe you understand the situation now,— Dash said. —We do not need to threaten your present host, who is of course innocent, being both £ and hostage.—
Another score! Melody had indeed taken the £ hostage, overwhelming her with the immensity of her aura. Cnom did not seem to object, but the principle was the same. Melody was guilty of the offense she fought against.
—But you must appreciate now that you have no reasonable escape,— Dash continued inexorably. —If you leave and hide from us again, we shall have to dispatch your body, and you will shortly fade out, wherever you are hiding. That would be an unfortunate waste of the finest aura ever known.—
Was there any way to free her Mintakan body from their clutches? Could she charge to the ledge, knock the body down, grab it and carry it away? No, the risk was too great. The Mintakan body was old and frail; such activity could kill it. And where would she take it? Into the jellybog to drown? In addition, she now perceived that the body was not in the open air, but within a protective shield; obviously the atmosphere of this planet was not suitable. Without the life-support system the Dash were providing, it would die regardless.
On the other foot, if she agreed to reanimate her own body, what then? Could she carry through her campaign to save her galaxy while trapped in an atmosphere bubble, unable to move freely even if she had the physical strength to? Hardly!
—There is an alternative,— Dash said, having allowed her thoughts time to coagulate. —We have chained the lady, but we do not wish to cause her unnecessary discomfort. You can transfer instead to this fine Dash and live in perfect comfort each day, returning to your natural body only during sleep. Thus you will hardly feel your age and infirmity, and can endure so long as your Mintakan body survives. That can be a long time, with the kind of medical care we can provide. We are in effect offering you a greatly extended youth.—
At the expense of her galaxy? Melody knew she could not do it. She remained standing, unable to cooperate, yet also unable to resist. It was an impasse, with the negative power of decision lying with the enemy. They could always kill her, if they so choose.
—I regret the need to force the issue,— Dash said, —but we are under extreme pressure ourselves, and we very much want you with us.—
To help them in their conquest? Hardly! They were accomplishing that nicely without her.
—You see, we can't force you out of your present host,— Dash explained, —and we can't do anything to that host, because of the covenant. Should we kill a £, the other £ might stampede. We can't hurt a £ or even detain one unreasonably; our threat with the cannon was a bluff against you, not Cnom. So we must convince you to leave that host voluntarily.
—To accomplish this, I shall explain why we need you. This planet is a leading source of Ancient information; sites abound more thickly here than anywhere else in the known universe. From these sites we have rediscovered Kirlian science that has propelled us to the forefront of our Galaxy, and soon the Galactic Cluster too. But more sites remain that are inaccessible to us. They are of the self-destruct variety, a type unknown in your own galaxy, that cannot be penetrated by any entity whose aura is of the wrong type or strength. We need the information locked within these sites, for there are many other galaxies in the universe, with many other sapient species. If one of those species should achieve complete Ancient science before we do, they will have the capacity to eliminate us. We cannot afford that risk.
—You have an aura of the family keyed to this generation of sites. The Slash entity you knew as Llume was of this family, but her aura was not strong enough. Your own exceeds two hundred, which we believe more than meets the necessary level. Therefore you and you alone are able to penetrate the ultimate secrets of the Ancients.—
That explained Dash's interest in her from the start. Just as the Andromedans were robbing the Milky Way galaxy of its vital energy, they were taking its best animate potentials. Good, hard business sense.
Many years ago an Andromedan agent had tempted the Milky Way Solarian hero, Flint of Outworld, with similar logic. She had told him that his own species would have acted much the same as hers had it possessed the opportunity, and she had been right. Yet in the end it was he who convinced her, though he was the barbarian and she the sophisticated issue of a leading civilization. She had defected to the Milky Way, and parity had returned to the galaxies.
But whatever had happened in the past, she was sure that Mintaka would not have sacrificed any galaxies for its own advantage. This ambition of Sphere Dash was wrong, and she could not support any part of it, regardless what happened to her or her Sphere. Better to kill herself, thus depriving the enemy of any possible use of her unique aura.
So she remained silent, though now she knew Dash would not shoot her. Should she try to bargain with him for whatever she could salvage, be it only half or a quarter of the Milky Way? Could she trust him or his Sphere that far?
—I cannot read your mind, precisely,— Dash said. —But I am responsive to the fluxes of your beautiful aura. I believe you are concerned primarily for your galaxy. Tap one foot if I am correct.—
No harm in that. Melody tapped one foot.
—I cannot promise you anything in that regard. But I can say this: If you evoke the secret science of the Ancients for us, we may no longer need the energy of your galaxy to sustain our civilization. Then it would be spared. However, since we do not know what is available in the Ancient sites, this is a gamble.—
A gamble whose terms were all in favor of Sphere Dash. If they won, they had the un
iverse; if they lost, they still had the Milky Way. Yet did she have any better alternative? She could not decide.
Dash took her hesitation for negation, which it probably was. —I dislike coercive measures, but the matter is urgent.—
Melody, perhaps on the verge of acquiescence (and perhaps not), now hesitated for another reason. If he could not do anything to her £ host, how could he do anything to her? He could only kill her Mintakan body, which would defeat his stated purpose.
—I did some research on Sphere Mintaka,— Dash said.—It was not thorough, for I only recently managed to signal my fleet and get picked up. Marooned in a prison host! Fortunately Hammer of Quadpoint was alert, and caught our crude broadcast.—
So the hostages had adapted the missing transfer unit for regular intergalactic transfer and used it to send Dash Boyd and the others home. Later, it had been used to send her here.
—Forgive me if I overlook the nuances of your culture. But as I understand it, Mintakans are born neuter, turn female at maturity, and male after the first mating. You never mated in your natural body, so spent your life as a female.—
That was close enough. A permanently sexed entity would hardly comprehend the intricacies of triensent sex.
—The sex of your Mintakan body determines the sex of your aura,— Dash continued after a pause. —What do you suppose would happen if the sex of that body should change?—
So that was it! Melody felt peculiar horror. They had a male Mintakan here, who would take the initiative. They could do it.
She might kill the male, but that would finish her own body too. And killing them all would not salvage her galaxy. The question she had to answer was whether she could help her galaxy better as a captive female or a free male. She knew the answer.
—You are way ahead of me, I know,— Dash said. —But to be certain we understand each other I will state it openly. There would seem to be two possible consequences of a change in sex in your Mintakan body. One is that your aura would change sex with it. In that case you would be unable to remain in your female £ host, and would have to vacate. Then I believe we would have you, for we control the transfer apparatus and alternate hosts.—
Melody had not thought of that. What would happen to a male aura in a female host? It was impossible to transfer into a host of the opposite sex; only neuter-sexed entities had any option, and even that was uncertain. Would her aura be bounced into the nearest available male host, which was exactly what Dash was ready for? Or would her aura simply be destroyed by the incompatibility of the host? Either way, she was lost.
—Or,— Dash continued, —would your aura fail to change, in which case you would be unable to return to you own body? That seems paradoxical, so I am prepared to gamble on the first prospect. Unless, of course, you elect to cooperate; that would solve all problems.—
No doubt. But Melody still had a galaxy to protect. She would have to gamble. And one part of her mind wondered about the anomaly: What would happen? Horrible that it should happen to her, but the scientific curiosity....
—Well, we proceed,— Dash said. He made a whirring signal with his wings. Music played abruptly. It was a strange harmony, vibrant but incomplete, unlike anything Cnom had ever heard. It was bud music.
Bud music: the compelling sound of a pair of Mintakans in the throes of love. In Sphere Mintaka, mating chambers were soundproofed, to prevent contagion. Otherwise the mating of one couple would trigger compulsive mating by many others within sonic range, and this was not desirable. The decision to mate was supposed to be based on intellectual preference, not sound, but it didn't always happen that way.
The male Mintakan stirred, approaching the old female husk. He had no intellectual preference; the bud music governed him. The female shell, though void of aura, would function. Not even the atmosphere bubbles separated them; Melody saw those two enclosures merge, in their own kind of mating, and form into just one chamber.
No! No! This was the most insidiously hellish rape! Dash had worked out an appallingly effective physical and intellectual torture for her! She would rather suffer anything than this!
Anything except the betrayal of her galaxy—and that was the price. So she could not stop this gruesome exhibit, this ultimate obscenity. But she could not watch it either. She closed her side eye.
But she could not close off the sound, for it came at her sensitive skin (impervious to talons, but responsive to sound) on every side. She tried to turn her attention away from it, and succeeded only in dredging up her painful past.
She had been just two years old when Ariose came. He was a handsome, extremely high-Kirlian sonic male of four, seeming quite mature and cultured. In Solarian terms he would have been thirty-two, she sixteen, each somewhat younger than Dash Boyd and Yael of Dragon, but with a similar set of outlooks. Two was the age of Mintakan blooming, when the tubes first rounded out and the strings became taut, and the diaphragms resonated to every trifling vibration. The age of delight, experiment, ambition, and beauty—and naiveté.
She had all nine feet, by definition the state of female virginity (the concepts were synonymous), of greatest innocence, desirability, and availability. The great majority of adult Mintakans were to some degree male; only once in life was one fully female.
Despite his age, Ariose had eight feet. He had mated only once. She was curious about that, since a male of his talents and presentation should have had opportunity to bud himself all the way down to three feet, had he wanted to. Why had he saved himself for her? She let herself believe that it was her physical beauty and sonic vibrance in intellectual qualities.
Mature Mintakans came at the agreement to bud circumspectly. Often they remained together for life, though there was no legal or moral requirement to do this. It merely reflected the wisdom of their initial decision: truly compatible entities had no need to wander.
Budding was not a casual, multiple performance like the chronic sexual efforts of Solarians, who copulated tens or hundreds of times for every offspring they produced. In fact, it was said in other Spheres that Solarians indulged in sexual activity more for transient personal pleasure than for the extension of the species. Melody knew that was a gross exaggeration; still her impressionable postadolescent mind was intrigued by the amazing concept. How much pleasure was there in budding that made it worth the permanent loss of a foot?
So when Ariose intimated that he would like to lose one foot with her, she reacted with foolish enthusiasm. She went with him in a brushcar to a mating chamber, and after feeding each other several strands of vermiculate food and absorbing sprays of liquid, they settled down to serious music.
Melody, of course, had never done this before. That was one reason for the system, she theorized. Since a Mintakan did not turn male until completing first budding, and two females could not mate, it guaranteed one experienced partner to show the way. She had heard that Solarians (Sphere Sol was the butt of a wealth of segment humor, perhaps because of its irritating thrust-culture that forced itself into the awareness of dissimilar species) sometimes got together for copulation and didn't know what to do. Or the reverse: They copulated without realizing what it was—until an infant Solarian manifested. Of course, such jokes would have been more effective had they had even the slightest credibility.
Ariose started the unique budding music, and Melody followed it without difficulty. As the sound intensified, they approached each other. He raised one clapper-foot invitingly, tapping with the other seven in intricate point and counterpoint. Melody raised one of her own fair feet, and now her eight tapping ones off-balanced his seven, creating a peculiar sensation of incompleteness. Discord and incompleteness were anathema to Mintakans; music had to be right.
"Your strings are as tight as steel wires," Ariose played. "Your tubes are as round and full as great organ pipes. Your drums are loud and mellow. Your clappers are marvels of precision."
Oh, such praise! Females, because of their inherent inexperience, were notoriously subject
to flattery, and she was no exception. She drew closer, her raised foot seeking his.
"And your aura," he played. "Like none ever known before."
"My aura?" This struck an unmelodious note; females were not generally praised for their auras. It was akin to praising a Solarian female for her money.
"Did you not know," he played, "you have the highest Kirlian aura ever measured—the only one in the Sphere that is higher than mine. I came to bud with you, hoping to produce a super-Kirlian entity...."
He wanted her only for her aural The whole thing had been arranged.
"How long I waited for you to mature, to emerge from drab neuterdom," Ariose continued, oblivious to the effect his commentary was having. "The success of such a budding—"
Melody made a discordance so vehement it almost broke her own strings. She swept her foot sidewise, knocking his clapper away.
Ariose, caught by surprise and ready for the budding connection, lost his foot. It flew off and crashed into the wall. His music stopped abruptly.
Then Melody suffered chagrin—for she had castrated him. She had knocked off his bud, unmerged. She fled from the mating chamber.
But the compulsive bud music stayed with her, pressing in from all around, inescapable. Her £ eye opened.
Her youth-budding had been horribly aborted. But the age-budding of her auraless body continued, forced by the compulsion of the recorded music. The male had extended one foot, and the female met it with one of her own. The seven male feet clattered in the imperfect counterpoint to the eight female feet, making the music unfulfilled. The beats had to match. Yet there was no eighth foot on the male side free to complete the last pair.