Except for the conjoined foot. Driven by the music, the feet melted together, becoming a single unit. This was the bud. Soon it would flower into a complete immature entity.
Melody closed her £ eye again. She had not fled far from Ariose before some sense penetrated her two-year mentality. So he wanted her for her aura. What, really, was wrong with that? After all, she had wanted him for his aura; she merely hadn't said so openly. She could have budded already with some lesser male, but only the high-Kirlian male had really excited her. Normal-level Kirlians were not even aware of aura; it was as though they were blind or deaf, not even able to appreciate what they were missing. Of course aura was important; it was the real key to modern civilization. She really had little else to distinguish her. Why let irrelevancies interfere with romance? Ariose had acted with perfect sense. He had formed a conception of his ideal female, based on Kirlian intensity, and had sought that female out. She should have appreciated the enormous honor for what it was.
She returned to the mating chamber, but Ariose was gone. What should she have expected? She had struck off his foot in as callously degrading a gesture as it was possible for one Mintakan to make to another. She had rendered him a male personality with a female number of feet; how could he mate now? Actually, once a Mintakan turned male, he remained so for life, unless he should use up all his feet—unlikely, since then he could not walk —in which case he would be honorably neuter again. But budding required that disparity of feet; two six-footed Mintakans could not mate, even though one were seven-footed in outlook.
She had never seen Ariose again, and never met another like him. His aura had been 190, and she never encountered another close to it. It was as though all high-Kirlian Mintakans avoided her now. Perhaps the music about her had spread. She could hardly blame them! She was lucky Ariose had not pressed a charge of mutilation against her.
She had retreated into her study of Tarot, after a brief apprenticeship with the local Temple of Tarot, and found some solace there. Never again had she been seriously tempted to bud.
There was an abrupt change in the music. Again her eye opened, though she tried to keep it closed. The bud formed from the merged feet had now disconnected from the female's body. Attached to the male, it left him with eight feet; and she now had eight feet also. The beat had equalized. That changed the music.
Then the bud dropped off the male's leg too. The music stopped. The bud had been formed as a separate entity, incorporating the heredity of each parent. It would, with proper care, grow into a small Mintakan neuter. The miracle of reproduction of the species!
But now Melody's native body had budded. It had become, by the definition of its nature, male.
She, here in the £ host, what was she, now?
She dared not remain here to find out.
22
Crisis of Sex
—it is not merely a matter of the etamin agent, quadpoint it is aposiopesis if the agent can lead us to—
:: this is ridiculous! a simple matter of nullifying one captive agent of a defeated galaxy ::
—our own agent is working on the matter there are very great potential rewards—
:: assuming your ancient site can yield us anything we cannot already possess with present technology, to utilize a conscious, dedicated agent of a foreign power to explore it is an exercise in such folly as to make my chisels blunt! are you not aware you are placing our entire program in jeopardy? I absolutely forbid this! ::
—it is too late the quest has already been initiated—
:: there is something about you slavekeeping creatures, here and in the milky way, that is alien to my comprehension from certain victory you seek defeat ::
Melody whirled back out of the chamber. —You cannot escape! Your body is here!— Dash whirred.
But she crashed out of the doorway, knocking out a supporting post. Part of the upper floor sagged. She bounced to the other side of the hall, bashing in a wooden wall. The aroma of freshly ruptured scentwood surrounded her. Then, venting her inner frustration and uncertainty, she deliberately attacked more posts.
The wood was strong, but was not braced for horizontal impact from such a huge, solid body. The city began to collapse about her. The air was filled with whirrings of panic as thousands of Dash birds were disturbed.
Yet what was this accomplishing, this blind bashing against those who had conquered her galaxy? Like the shallow entity she had been in youth, she destroyed what affronted her—and maybe did herself the most damage.
She burst out of the city and thundered down a channel toward the bog. Now it seemed the hue and cry was out; other £ were charging after her. What did it matter? She had no body and no galaxy to return to!
Something was funny about the pursuing £. They had no mahouts! Without Dash direction, why should they be chasing her?
No time to wonder! She plunged into the bog. As the atmosphere thickened about her, as the jelly formed and exerted its drag, her first passion faded. What, actually, had happened?
"It is the Rendezvous," Cnom informed her. "Your emotion triggered it."
The Rendezvous: a periodic gathering of the £ in the depths of the bog, for the purpose of acquaintance, decision, and mating. It occurred irregularly, generally when some reason arose. This time Melody was that reason.
Could there be any help for her in the Rendezvous? She did not know. She felt much as she had when the Ace of Swords had been going derelict around her.
The £ continued down the channels, this time avoiding the wooden lattice. The jelly grew thicker, until it seemed impossible to push through it much farther. This was the depth at which the Dash failed. They had dismounted in a hurry when the Rendezvous began. Somehow all £ and Dash had known the moment it started; even the sick £ were hauling themselves along.
But with increasing depth, the jell began to thin, until at last it was the consistency of mere water. Like plasma, Melody thought; the pressure was too great for the jell to maintain its structure.
"Do the Dash know of this lessening of viscosity?" Melody asked Cnom. The question was rhetorical, for she knew Cnom didn't have the answer. What difference did it make anyway? Sub-jelly pressure was fatal to Dash; £ logic pursued the matter no further.
No light penetrated here. She was aware of the terrain by its sonic vibrations, and the echoes of the vibrations of the multitude of tramping £. Nevertheless, there was plant life in this gloom. The huge trunks of the assorted deepwoods were rooted here, the scentwoods and the larger nether supports of the lattice. Feather leaves were also present, not as light refractors but as nets to collect edible debris sifting down from above. The jelly held and assimilated most of it—Melody suddenly realized that the jell itself was a form of life—but had wastes of its own that made excellent plant food. The ecology of a planet was always in balance.
Her host-body contracted as the intensifying pressure worked on it, much as the Spican bodies did. The £ were remarkable creatures, capable of adapting rapidly to extremes of environment. It was cold down here, but the sheer mass of her body insulated her.
In the deepest hollow of the bog the £ converged for the Rendezvous. There were thousands of them, but their vibrations became minimal; this was an almost silent meeting.
There were no trees here; a great hollow was clear of all obstructions. Had the £ trampled it out? No, Cnom's memory showed that it had always been here. Yet it was far more than natural processes should account for.
Melody realized that this space was, indeed, artificial. The vibrations from deep below had the signature of dense metal. It seemed to predate Dash civilization. What could it mean?
Then she became aware of the aura, which was so even and unfeatured that she had not recognized it at first. It was not the pulsing, sparkling emanation of a living thing, but the uncanny precision of inanimate aura, such as was used for the transfer of energy. Only one thing could explain it.
It was science of the Ancients.
A thrill
ran through her. This was an unspoiled Ancient site! There seemed to be no entry, but the aura identified it positively. Not since the great lusty adventurer Flint—how much he was in her mind, now!—had stumbled on the Hyades site, had a sapient of her galaxy discovered a site of this significance!
And this was in the enemy galaxy.
The Dash could not know about it, or they would have been into it already. They possessed the technology to handle the depth—no, that wasn't it. They must know about it, for they had sophisticated Kirlian detectors. But this was in the £ demesnes, and the £ did not like aliens among them, even in transfer. The site must be one of the self-destruct variety; the effort to break into it could destroy it and have grievous effect on the contemporary society. So the Dash were balked, and only Melody herself had the aural key, perhaps, to the final secrets of the Ancients!
If she could get into that site....
But now the £ had gathered. From among them came the vibrations of their leader; in the crowd she could not identify which body it was, but that did not matter. He called himself Dgab.
"This Rendezvous was triggered by the alien among us, she who defended her right by repulsing the lancer," he vibrated. "The Dash put her under pressure of aura, and she fled. We must deal with her first."
It was uncanny how closely the £ society kept track of her! Melody realized she now had to speak for herself, or the £ would force her back to the Dash lest she disrupt the covenant between the species.
"I am of Galaxy Milky Way," Melody vibrated. "The society of Dash is destroying that galaxy, and I must save it if I can. To do this I must enter the Ancient site beneath us."
"Only Aposiopesis may grant that," Dgab replied. "Only when a worthy mating occurs will the portal yield." A worthy mating! Was there no way to get away from sex? Her host-memory filled in the background: all £ matings occurred publicly in the center of the Ancient declivity. The aura of the Ancients was the unknowable God, Aposiopesis. Legend had it that when a mating met the approval of the God, he would reveal his secrets to that worthy pair.
Melody seemed to have escaped the sex-change of her Mintakan body. Apparently it was her personal experience that defined her sex. But if she mated now, in this host, she surely would change—and have to leave the host. For she could not delegate this to Cnom; the £ knew her, and she herself had to be the one to try to gain access to the site.
What would happen if she were unable to do so? She would probably fade out at an accelerating rate and finally expire, freeing her host. That had happened to Flint of Outworld and his Andromedan mate. Could she afford the risk?
There was no question! "I will try to please Aposiopesis," she vibrated. "If I succeed or if I fail, I will soon be gone from you."
"Stand at the portal," Dgab vibrated, and Melody rotated forward until she was in the center of the depression. Here the alien aura was stronger, with an especially focused column; in a living creature it would have approached her own intensity. But there was no living aspect about it, and it spread far wider than any she could imagine from mere flesh and nerves. To think that this remained after three million years! The Ancients, without doubt, had been the ultimate masters of aura!
"Who would breed with this entity?" the leader asked.
No one replied.
"Whom would you choose?" Dgab asked Melody.
"He with the strongest aura," Melody said immediately. Aura was obviously the key to this site—if there really were a key—but this was also a personal preference. She had once scorned love based on aura, and had paid for that mistake with a lifetime's celibacy. Now her body had been brutally freed of that state. Maybe her mating had been preserved for this: the climactic opening of the Ancient site.
Now several £ rotated forward. £ mating was not entirely voluntary; if a suitable partner was needed, he was impressed into service.
They trotted past Melody, each displaying his proboscis according to ritual. Because the £ were rotary—in the Tarot they would surely be represented by the Suit of Disks—their bodies had no fixed projections. But as they had to suck nutrient fluids from the plants, the proboscis unfolded when required.
The first had an aura of about fifty—good, but not at all in Melody's category. The next was better, about seventy. The third was forty.
A dozen paraded by. The highest was just under one hundred. That was quite respectable. Whole planets of entities sometimes did not have any aura higher than that.
Still....
"Will you, Dgab, also offer yourself?" Melody asked as it occurred to her that a Kirlian-conscious species might elect a high-Kirlian leader.
Dgab emerged from the throng. He was old—as old as Melody herself in her original Mintakan body. He moved slowly, his three legs still strong, but his physical strength diminished. Yet his aura as he approached her was indeed powerful, in the range of 150. Here, perhaps, was a suitable mate!
A new £ whirled down from the outside. His legs were spindly, his body small, and one of his tentacles was missing. "Allow me," he vibrated, speaking imperfectly.
"The dead has been animated," Dgab observed. "What spirit occupies this body?"
"Dash," the newcomer vibrated. Actually the designation differed, but this was the way Melody recognized it. "Alien to you, but mindful of the covenant, I come to settle alien business. By the standard set, I qualify. Perceive my aura."
Melody found herself in another turmoil of indecision. His aura was 175, certainly the closest to her own she would encounter here. She had specified the highest aura. But this was the enemy! Was she to evoke for him the secrets of the Ancients?
"No! I do not accept him!" she vibrated angrily. "He seeks only to nullify me, to destroy my galaxy!"
"I meet the specifications," Dash replied. "I come to save her galaxy from the destruction that otherwise is certain—but that is irrelevant to these proceedings. I qualify."
"Agreed," Dgab decided, stepping back toward his favored anonymity in the crowd.
"I don't agree!" Melody vibrated. "Come near me, bird, and I kill you!"
"Let the aliens decide between themselves," Dgab decided.
Dash approached. "I seek only the blessing of Aposiopesis," he said, "for the good of the universe, your galaxy included."
What amazing persistence! He had thrown himself into an unsuitable host and was risking his life by intruding among hostile £, when he could have simply destroyed her own £ host by some subterfuge and been done with it While he really did want the Ancient science—he wanted Melody, too. He retained all those admirable traits of intelligence, aura, and courage that had attracted her to him despite her knowledge of what he was. Yet— "I cannot trust you!"
"Why not merely knock off my foot?" he inquired, stepping nearer.
He knew! He had found out about her past, and now he taunted her with it.
She could feel his aura, the strongest she had encountered in the better part of her lifetime. She had been bemused by that aura once, and thought she loved him —until he had tried to kill her. Until he had sexually tortured her aged Mintakan body. Until—but it had never been possible!
She poised herself for combat, but had no effective weapons. The £ were huge, but not normally aggressive. They could only bang against each other, not really hurting. If only she had that trunk of scentwood!
Well, then, she would bang! She launched herself at him—but the water slowed her body. Dash met her with a lunge, his proboscis unfolding. It jabbed deeply into her torso, like the thrust of a lancer, plunging all the way into her liquid core.
She would have cried out—had she a mouth and air system. She had been caught by surprise, undone! But before she could reorient, she felt, instead of pain, a slow, warm, rich, growing pleasure.
Dash had not wounded her—he was mating with her! Mere puncture did not hurt the £; it was the loss of core substance. There were similarities to the way they had mated in their Solarian bodies, but also differences. In each case the male used an ere
ctile member to penetrate the body of the female, and through this member the juices of copulation flowed. The difference was that here there was no prepared aperture in the female; the male made his own. And the flow through the proboscis was two-way.
She was caught up in the developing ecstasy of the exchange. Dash was her enemy, symbol of all that she fought—yet he was a fine configuration of an aura and a bold, smart, intriguing male. He pursued his objectives as rigorously as she pursued hers. He had animated a defunct £ body—an extraordinary step for a Dash to take!—merely to join her in this. It was hard to condemn that.
His tube inside her sucked out the liquid core, depleting her. But this was a gentle, wholly exhilarating release, not the brute rupture the lancer's attack would have been. Then the flow reversed, and her fluid was pumped back through the conduit, mixed with his own, doubling the volume. The pleasure as she swelled was double what it had been.
Then he withdrew, and the puncture closed after him, bringing on the climax-completion—the most exquisite sensation yet. Now the dual fluids were within her—the pool for the formation of new life, possessed of the twin genetic patterns and of its nascent aura. Like the Solarian process, parturition was not immediate; it would take time for the new entity to take shape from that pool, to develop and finally break out.
So she had not yet completed procreation. Only the mating had been effected thus far, but she was—gravid. The process was inevitable. And with it, she would turn male, and have to leave her host. The commitment had been made at last.
And she was not sorry. All her long life she had waited for this, and now it was complete, though she die. The ghost of her past had been extirpated.
Suddenly the impersonal machine aura around them changed. The surface beneath their feet began to sink.
"Aposiopesis!" someone vibrated. "Our God accepts!"
For the Ancient site was opening... after three million years.
23
Ancient of Days