Kirlian Quest

  The Sador was unmoved. "Is it convenience that guides you—or truth?"

  Herald sighed inwardly. This round, wheel-spinning creature had considerable force of personality! "I shall consult with the Duke."

  "He will be in the trophy room," Psyche said, taking his arm like the Lady she was, and guiding him along. The Sador rolled after them unobtrusively. Herald noted that though the castle stairs were not fitted with ramps, the wheeled creature had no problem negotiating the steps. He was able to use his front and back wheels as stops while maneuvering with the side wheels. A wheel set crosswise to the direction of motion was quite effective as a brake, and Dollar was physically constructed so that two wheels were always sidewise, easy to drop into place.

  The trophy room was filled. Cups, helmets, swords, lances, and other weapons lay on tables and under glass, and Shields of Arms covered the walls. The Achievements of families of far-flung Spheres were much in evidence. Even at a glance, Herald recognized several, and knew them to be authentic. This, more than anything else, demonstrated the power and galactic awareness of the Duke of Kade.

  The Duke turned to face them, evincing some of the same tight mannerisms his daughter had. "Your verdict?" he asked Herald coldly.

  "The Lady Kade is not now, and has never been, possessed by any foreign aura," Herald said. "I testify to this as an expert in aural matters, and will so report officially. I recommend that you verify this by obtaining an aural printout for computer analysis. My visit here has been an unnecessary expense for you."

  If the Duke was gratified by this report, he did not show it. He turned to the Sador. "Witness?"

  "Protest," the Earl said. "I do not question the expert's sincerity or competence; indeed, I have been extremely impressed by his power of aura. But he has examined the subject at a moment of quiescence and has not perceived the nature of the Possession. Neither can this be verified by any machine printout. Were it an ordinary case, we should have had definitive evidence before this."

  Kade placed his five-fingered blue hands behind him, linked, and paced in two small circles, forming the pattern of a lemniscate, the symbol of infinity used in mathematics and the Tarot. Unconscious symbolism, surely!

  "Witness, you are aware that the expert was summoned at your behest, not mine, and was chosen by your group, not mine. I abstained entirely from the examination. Now he has ruled against you."

  "I am aware. But in the performance of my duty as Witness, I must ask that the expert be retained until the Possession manifests."

  "There is no Possession!" Kade shouted explosively. "He would have to remain until my daughter died of ancient age." But he calmed himself immediately, exerting the personal discipline of his station in this society. "Apology. It behooves me to see that the Witness is completely satisfied. Set us a period for Herald of Slash to remain. If he still acquits my daughter, then you must needs be satisfied."

  "This depends on the time allotted," Whirl said dubiously. "I am certain that Possession will manifest, but uncertain when. It might occur within the hour, or as long as a Keep-month from now."

  Herald's host spoke briefly, internally, sensing confusion. "A Keep-month is the period of revolution of our largest moon, which is ten Sol days or one point four Andromedan units."

  /Thank you,/ Herald replied to him.

  "Then we shall retain him for a month!" Kade was saying. "As far as I am concerned, Possession will never manifest. But a month it is—for your satisfaction."

  "I cannot stay that time!" Herald protested. "I have other appointments—"

  "I shall reimburse you for your lost fees," Kade said dryly. "I believe I command sufficient resources to accommodate such a commitment."

  "We shall reimburse him," Whirl said. "He remains at our behest. But he must accompany the Lady continuously, that the manifestation not be missed."

  "Not at night, surely!" the Duke said.

  "Night is the most likely occasion. He must be there."

  Herald shook his head, aware of the possible complications this invoked. "This is not entirely a matter of fee or human propriety," he said. "I have commitments. Other creatures require my help. Some may die. I cannot allocate so much time to a single case."

  "I shall pay their way here to see you!" the Duke cried, as if dealing with a spurious objection. Then, to Whirl: "My daughter is nubile. The presence of a man in her chamber at night would militate against her honor."

  "I must be present," Whirl insisted. "I am the Witness. I assure you I have no dishonorable interest in—"

  Herald suppressed a smile. "Witness, he refers to me. I am an alien creature, but I am at the moment in human form. I believe Solarians of opposite sex are not encouraged to share night facilities unless they are married."

  "Precisely," Kade said. "My daughter's repute must be chaste, for potential marriage. The presence of a man in her room at night, however justified, would cast a shadow."

  "Who would she marry, unless she were free of the demon?" Whirl asked. Then he quickly qualified himself. "Of the suspicion of Possession?"

  "Would any of your scions be available as grooms, were she so freed?" Kade demanded.

  "We do have human allies," the Sador said. "The Scion of Skot, for example. Historically the Klans of Skot and Kade were once united, serving with honor in the Second War of Energy. The young Solarian Skot may not be averse. Your daughter is mooted to be very pretty by the standards of your species, and an alliance between Klan Skot and the Dukedom of Kade would be politically—"

  "Enough, Earl. You have made your point." The Duke returned to Herald. "You will remain here a month, and my daughter shall not leave your presence. The Enemy Witness shall stand chaperone. Your forthcoming appointments will be conducted to you, or granted the services of other healers, fee covered by Planet Keep. Satisfactory?"

  Herald spread his human hands. "If this is so important to you—"

  "It is a colossal waste of your time and my money," Kade said. "But less waste than war would be. I indulge this foolishness that the Enemy Witness be satisfied, that there be peace on our world, and the Lady Kade be untainted by any suspicion whatever."

  "This is satisfactory," Whirl said reluctantly. "Please convey the nature of this compromise to the King."

  "Instantly." And the Duke stalked off.

  Herald turned to Psyche. "We did not ask your sentiment," he said. "Do you comprehend what this entails?"

  "I wish you could stay longer," she said, with a smile of not-quite-childlike innocence.

  They had a sumptuous meal of Sador steak dressed in pseudo-Terran gravy, green savor-bread, and wheelwasp wine. Herald discovered that his human host had a reasonably cultured perception of taste, and he enjoyed himself more than he had anticipated. But afterward he had to retire to the privy to perform the Solarian function of relief that necessarily followed digestion. That would have been a messy business, had his host not been experienced.

  "A client of yours has arrived," the Duke informed Herald as he emerged. "Hweeh of Weew awaits you in the library." He smiled with grim humor.

  Herald remembered the entry in his schedule. Treatment for shock, and the Shield of Arms for a family within the Segment of Weew, Milky Way Galaxy. Routine. Odd that the entity should be brought here so promptly. He offered his arm in courtly fashion to Psyche, as she had to come with him, and together with Whirl they went to the library.

  Around the walls of this room were shelves bearing great numbers of quaint old-fashioned Solarian printed books. Herald was sure that few contemporary Solarians could read the archaic symbols of these texts, but was just as sure that the Duke of Kade was among those who could. Education sometimes took strange forms!

  A lump of gray protoplasm huddled on the floor. Herald looked at it, startled. "They mattermitted him!"

  "He must be very important," Psyche said.

  "Or very rich." He glanced at her. "Kastle Kade has a mattermission receiver?"

  "No. He must have arrived at the castle
of the King, and been shipped here by mailcoach while we ate."

  Herald assessed the situation. "A Weew in shock should not be on the cold floor. I shall have to make him comfortable. Psyche—I mean, Lady Kade—"

  "Psyche," she said, smiling.

  "Psyche, please sit quietly in that chair. Whirl, make yourself comfortable but obscure. I do not object to an audience, but it is possible that my client will. Have either of you encountered a physical Weew before?"

  Psyche shook her head no. "Only in Transfer," Whirl said.

  "Then do not be alarmed at what passes. Weew are special creatures."

  The two made themselves inconspicuous. Herald kneeled beside the lump. Slowly he extended his hand, touching its dull surface. His aura focused, imbuing the creature, whose own aura was quite respectable: between 120 and 125, the uncertainty owing to distortion from shock. That deepened the mystery of why the Weew had not been Transferred. Since aura inevitably faded in a foreign host, albeit slowly, only high-intensity Kirlians could leave their natural bodies for extended periods. But this Weew's aura was well above that threshold.

  Mattermission of physical bodies across galactic distances was so prohibitively expensive that it was an extreme rarity; many millions of molecular messages could be transmitted for the same price. Hweeh obviously should have been assigned to another healer, or allowed to wait until Herald could come to Segment Weew himself. Or the Weew could have been Transferred to a host on Planet Keep, as Herald himself had been. Transfer was the way to travel.

  True, the host would have been thrown into Hweeh's state of shock, but Herald could have cured that as readily in a local host as in the Weew body. Shock was not a dangerous condition for a Weew; it was a natural defense mechanism. Treatment was as likely to be effective after a considerable delay as when immediate, and often the subject recovered spontaneously. So some entity in Segment Weew was inordinately anxious to have this creature functional, rapidly—and that was another signal for caution. Herald did not merely accept his fee for service blindly rendered; he acted for the benefit of his specific client. If an immediate recovery was not in Hweeh's interest, Herald would decline the case.

  As the mighty aura suffused it, the lump turned brown, then red, glowing slightly. "Auditory," Herald murmured in Clustric, the common language of the civilizations of the Cluster. All sapients had to master it before indulging in interstellar commerce or receiving advanced educative degrees. "Sound. Sound. Sound. Sound."

  The lump quivered. A projection developed, forming into a horn. "Sound," it honked in the same language.

  Good. This was an educated creature, as he had suspected. Peon-entities hardly rated mattermission! "Thank you," Herald said. "In addition, visual. Sight. Sight."

  The Weew body grew another projection. An eyeball formed in a socket on the end of a stalk. It twisted around, blinking.

  "Very good," Herald continued encouragingly. "I am Herald the Healer, here to help you. Are you comfortable where you are?"

  "I am Hweeh of Weew. I find the floor rigid and overly conductive of calories, with cracks."

  "It is fitted stone, a poor insulator of heat. If you will form appendages, you may mount this resilient couch."

  Hweeh extruded three pegs, lifted his body high, and dumped himself into the couch. "Much better," he said, letting the limbs retract and disappear into his torso.

  "I am told you are in shock," Herald said. "Are you able to explain to me the nature of the occasion for your withdrawal?"

  The eyestalk shuddered. "I do not remember. Is it a matter of importance?"

  "I presume so, since your Sphere has taken considerable trouble to bring you to me."

  "Perhaps it is described in the manifest." Hweeh writhed, and from his substance popped out a pellet. "Yes, here is one. Do you wish to imbibe it?"

  "In this host, I am unable. Please digest it for me."

  The pellet sank into Hweeh's mass. Herald knew the creature was dissolving it by means of generated acids, and absorbing the fluids it contained. The chemicals of its composition amounted to a refined Weew code. A given message could be brief or day-long. A number of other creatures of the Cluster had learned to assimilate and interpret these code-fluids, but very few Solarians had mastered this particular talent.

  @@@@@, Hweeh said.

  "I do not comprehend the Weew language in this host," Herald said. "Can you provide a Clustric translation? It need not be exact."

  "Sorry. I can as readily provide a Quotes translation, if you wish. You appear to be in a Quote host."

  So the Weew knew Solarian! He was really educated! "That would be excellent, Hweeh."

  "I present the manifest," Hweeh said in quite passable Solarian Quotes. "Bearer is Hweeh of Planet Swees, Sphere Rweer, Segment Weew, Galaxy Milky Way. Hweeh is engaged in the occupation of research astronomy, specializing in Fringe-Cluster phenomena. He is the Segment's finest practitioner of this discipline. He was found in shock amid the tools of his research. The final words recorded by his research computer were @The Space Amoeba is—@"

  Hweeh's aura fluctuated wildly as he stopped reading. Herald whipped his hand out to touch the Weew's flushed flesh, but he was too late; the creature had gone into secondary shock.

  "Damn!" Herald swore in Solarian idiom. "I have compounded his problem." The horn and eyeball sagged back into the graying mass. "I am sorry," Herald said, though he knew the creature could no longer hear him. But what counted was the healing power of his aura, softening the wound, causing the flesh to relax. "Rest, sleep, recuperate, estivate. I will be with you anon."

  Only when he was sure Hweeh was resting quietly did Herald remove his hand. "I blundered. I should have anticipated that the manifest was not for his own perception."

  He looked about. "You may speak now. The Weew has dissolved his ear; he cannot hear you."

  "What is this 'Space Amoeba'?" Psyche inquired immediately.

  "This I must now ascertain. I believe I have prevented him from suffering actual regression, but before I animate him again I must have more information. Does this library contain references on astronomy?"

  "Oh, yes!" she said eagerly. "Kastle Kade has the best library on the planet, except for the King's royal archives." She tripped across the room to the far wall and touched a book. At once a holograph formed in a readout globe in the corner. Herald had not even noticed this before, or realized that these books were holo-keyed; this local culture was not quite as archaic as he had assumed.

  The image showed the Milky Way Galaxy in all its splendor. Quickly the three-dimensional image expanded, the outer coils of the Galaxy moving out of view. The stars of Segment Etamin appeared—bright blue Rigel, red Betelgeuse, the three jewels of Orion's Belt, where the notorious Melody of Mintaka had lived. And of course Sador, and Etamin itself, nucleus of the Segment. Sol hardly showed, being a comparatively dim star, but in a geography of historical power, Sol would have loomed like a late supernova. Flint of Outworld had been a Solarian, subverting the nameless Slash sent to nullify him, and finally marrying her after both had died in the Hyades. Flint had put Etamin on the Cluster map and brought his species a notoriety that was largely undeserved. Savior of the Milky Way—as though the accident of sudden parity of Ancient science had had nothing to do with it! Thereafter, Solarians and Polarians had infiltrated the governing councils of Galaxy Milky Way, especially after the Second War of Energy. It was the continuing machinations of Solarian oppression that were felt most keenly by the downtrodden Spheres of Galaxy Andromeda. That was one reason the Solarians were the butt of thinly veiled Andromedan humor, the pretense that all creatures of Sol were basically barbarians, even though that concept was one or two thousand years out of date. But this was not his concern for the moment.

  "Look up the term 'Space Amoeba,' " Herald said. She adjusted the main control, and a new picture formed in the globe. The narrator's voice said: "Space Amoeba: a formation of Fringe-Cluster matter whose specific nature is conjectural. Emanating f
rom a postulated point source, dust has spread out in a restricted pattern over the course of several decades to form a partially opaque cloud approximately one hundred light-years—thirty parsecs—in diameter. Uncertainties of measurement have made it suffer seemingly protein shifts of structure, from which its name derives; even its projected expansion is questioned by some authorities as its shape is not typical of the shell-remnants of supernovas. Limited radiospectrography suggests it is composed of solid particles admixed with diffuse gases. Formation is sparse, appearing only on the most specific and recent surveys. No evidence of nova activity in that region. Further definition must await direct investigation."

  "Just the kind of thing a good research astronomer should be interested in," Psyche remarked. "It certainly seems obscure enough."

  Herald peered at the vague image in the globe. It was hardly more than a smear, apparently a tenuous obfuscation of background galaxies. There was obviously not much to it, but the enhancement of its substance provided by the holograph retouch artist did make it seem to have branching lines of movement extending from the nucleus, like the fluxes of a living cell. So it had been dubbed the Space Amoeba, gaining an allure and mystery that hardly seemed justified by the facts.

  "Where is it?" he asked.

  Psyche checked. "Just off Furnace," she announced.

  Furnace! But immediately he caught himself. His forced fiancée could have nothing to do with this. He could not afford to let subjective personal matters interfere with his job. He had to understand the astronomy, the research implications. What was there in the Amoeba that had sent this specialist into shock? Why should Segment Weew think it so urgent that Hweeh be healed rapidly? Obviously they took the matter seriously.

  "Are there any entities of Weew here on Keep?" Herald inquired aloud.

  "There surely are, in Transfer," Whirl replied.

  "I would like to interview a Weew scientist or other learned entity, if this can be arranged."

  "It can be arranged," Psyche said happily. She was making herself useful, and it illuminated her. She crossed the room again, her tresses drawing back prettily as she traveled. There was something about the human form, at least as it was expressed by the nascently mature female, that had a peculiar appeal.