“No, of course not!”
“I’ll find out,” he moved suddenly, and caught her arm. “You have flesh. But I’d better make sure you’re there inside too. You could be an empty shell.” He drew her to him, fiddling with his clout to expose his rising member.
“No!”
Hooo paused. “What?”
“Women don’t tell men no, in her culture,” Tod explained to the others. “Rape is unknown, because the women have only the option to accede to the man’s will.”
“I don’t want to do it,” Veee said. “Let me go.”
Hooo’s brow furrowed. “Don’t want to do what?”
“Don’t want to have sex with you. I’m my own woman now.”
He stared at her. “You are a spook! Well, I’ll cure that soon enough.” He held her close, guiding his turgid member under her cloak.
Veee swung her free arm, smacking him on the side of the head with her fist. Startled, he let her go. She whirled and ran. After a moment he pursued. Now he was angry.
Veee ran for the trail. But Hooo tackled her and brought her down to the ground, prone. Then he hiked up her robe to bare her bottom and readied his member again. Sex was on his mind, and he meant to have it.
“Get on your hands and knees,” Tod called, knowing Veee could hear him while the man could not.
“That will just make it easier for him,” Veee gasped.
“You won’t stay there,” Tod told her. “Do it.”
Veee humped her strong body, getting her rear up, then her shoulders. “Ah, now you are cooperating, as you should,” Hooo said, pulling her bottom in to him.
“Now race forward, hands and knees,” Tod said.
Veee did. Surprised, Hooo pursued her awkwardly on his knees.
“Now get to your feet, turn into him and pick him up,” Tod said. “Carry him to the trail.”
Veee smiled. She followed directions, and in moments had Hooo draped across her sturdy shoulders, too amazed to resist. Her actions had been totally unexpected.
She carried him to the nearby trail—and vanished as she entered, just as Wizard had. Hooo dropped to the ground, clearly confused.
Veee saw that she was free, and collapsed herself. Vanja leaped to catch her, and held her close. “It’s okay to cry,” she said. “You could have been raped and killed.”
Veee cried. Tod and Wizard, embarrassed, turned away. It was clear that the two women were now firm friends, and understood each other in ways the men did not.
“This too is interesting,” Bem said.
“I guess the prospect of rape is worse to a woman than to a man,” Tod said.
“No it isn’t,” Vanja called. “Just think about being involuntarily sodomized by a brute ogre, and you’ll get it.”
Tod and Wizard shared a shudder. “We get it,” Tod said.
“But you did help,” Vanja said. “Come here.”
Tod went to them. Veee transferred to him, all damp and grateful. “Thank you! I couldn’t think what to do.”
“I was able to be more objective, because I wasn’t the one under attack,” Tod said.
She drew her face back a bit, gazing into his eyes. “If he had done it, would you still want me?”
That was her concern? “Yes! I love you.”
He felt her tension dissipating. “I learned to be my own woman, from you. I couldn’t stand to return to the old way. If I’d just let him do it, then he would have finished and gone away. But I was afraid I would lose you.”
“No, Veee no! You had a right to fight back.”
They paused to watch Hooo, who was bewilderedly getting to his feet. Now he was sure he had encountered a ghost. After a moment he walked away, shaking his head.
“I’d have knifed him,” Vanja said.
“I never thought of my knife!” Veee said, chagrined.
“Neither did we,” Vanja said. “But maybe it’s better to let him go tell his story. It might make tribesmen more cautious about raping women, for fear you will reappear and carry them away.”
Veee smiled. “Yes.” She swallowed. “I can’t go back.”
“Neither can I,” Vanja said. “Or Wizard. All of us really understand that now.”
“I could,” Tod said. “But I don’t want to. There’s nothing for me there.”
“Except to sniff out the androids,” Vanja said. “If they’re not near your frame, it’s going to be a more complicated search.”
“There’s still time today,” Tod said. “Let’s do it.”
They backtracked along Veee’s trail, intersected Tod’s, and went to his terminus. There was his house, unchanged.
He stepped off the trail. He sniffed the air, expecting it to be clean.
And caught a faint whiff of android. Oh, no!
He stopped back on the trail. “I smelled it. Faint, but there. It could have been there before, and I didn’t catch it, but now I’m sensitized to it.”
“That means the android trail is close to this one,” Wizard said.
“But not on this one,” Tod said. “How do we get at it?”
“We sniff it out,” Vanja said. “The traces are probably there; we just missed them.”
“Yes,” Wizard said. “We were not really alert until Tod verified its presence. This suggests that there is no active contact, merely the potential for it. Which in turn means we are on time. If we cut off this trail, the menace will be abated.”
They backtracked. They had taken no more than ten steps when Veee sniffed and announced it. “Here.”
They were in the forest, before the trees became alien. There was an overgrown offshoot none of them had noticed on the way out. “Here,” Vanja agreed, sniffing.
Bem forged along it like a small tank, flattening it for the others. Soon they were at the terminus.
“But can I go there?” Tod asked. “When it’s not exactly my frame?”
“You should be able to go there partially,” Wizard said. “This seems to be so close to yours that it should be almost complete for you.”
Tod wasn’t sure what that meant, but decided to risk it. He stepped out and sniffed the air.
The odor of android was much stronger. This was the place.
He stepped back onto the trail. “This is it. It looks like my frame, only a different location.”
“It is your near future,” Wizard said. “I was able to scry that much.”
“My near future? Won’t that put me into paradox?”
“You will not be able to. Paradox is self limiting.”
Tod hoped Wizard was correct. “So what should I do?”
“Go out there and locate the source. Learn what you can of it, especially the identity of the one who took this trail. Get me that, and I can scry the rest.”
“How can I learn that? It could be anyone in this world.”
Wizard considered. “No. The trail must terminate near the person’s residence. Check for that.”
Tod, dubious, went out again. There was a yard, and a house, similar to those he knew. He walked up to the door and tried the handle.
His hand passed through the knob. He was a ghost, as Veee had been. So this was not that close to his own frame.
Well, in that case...
He walked through the door into the house. It seemed to be deserted. Not surprising, since its proprietor had taken the trail. Tod made his way to the bedroom—fortunately it was a ground level residence, with no upper story—and looked at the dresser. There was a picture of a young man with a young woman. A married couple? One took the trail? Then where was the other?
“Wizard, can you scry this picture?” Tod asked.
“Yes. That is a married couple. The man works at the plasma factory. His wife Hellene had an increasing problem with that, because the idea of creating life in the laboratory conflicts which her religion. She finally left him. He, disconsolate, took the trail. He took one sample android with him and set it loose, hoping it would find a home in the wilderness.”
&nb
sp; “There’s our source!” Tod exclaimed.
“Yes. You don’t need to check the factory; we have what we need. Come back in before there is mischief.”
Tod was glad to comply. He walked back through the closed door and toward the trail. It was a relief to make it safely back, though there had not been any immediate threat he was aware of. He was almost disappointed.
But just as his foot came to the portal, something happened. He was lifted into the air. “What?”
“Something has caught you in an electronic net,” Bem said. “It appears to be a trap set to spring when you approach this point.”
“Why didn’t it spring when I came into this world?” Tod asked, floundering around in an effort to gain purchase on something.
“Probably your first passage primed it, and your second set it off,” Bem said. “We have such traps in my frame. They are used to capture marauding animals. Normal animals pass by and do not return; marauders linger to do their damage.”
“How do I get out of this?”
“You must wait until the trap proprietor comes to free you.”
“Great,” Tod muttered. His routine visit had abruptly become un-routine.
“Here they come now,” Vanja said.
It appeared to be a garden tractor with two men riding it. It was floating over the landscape. There was no loud motor or blast of air; it simply moved along without support.
“Levitation,” Wizard said, sounding impressed.
“Or anti-gravity,” Tod said, also impressed. “This is a future realm.”
The tractor nosed up to where Tod was suspended. “What is it, Dib?” one man asked.
“An invisible spook, Dab” the other said. “Seems we caught one.”
Tod was startled by the fact that he could understand them, in contrast to his experience with Veee when she left the trail. Then he realized why: this was his own near future. The language had not changed, just the technology.
“But it was Bison we were looking for, not a ghost. What’s a ghost doing here?”
“Maybe Bison died?”
“There was never a life-terminus indication,” Dib said. “He just vanished without explanation.”
“Leaving his wife distraught. She thinks it’s her fault.”
“Well, Hellene had left him,” Dib said. “That really broke him up. He might have done something.”
“He did,” Dab said. “But I don’t think he died.”
“Well, we’d better take this spook to the incinerator at the Gunk Works and reset the trap. Maybe the next catch won’t be a false alarm.”
“The incinerator!” Tod exclaimed. “I don’t like the sound of that.”
“When a trap catches something supernatural, incineration is normally the preferred way to abolish it,” Bem said.
“I’m so glad for that explanation!”
Now the tractor was floating rapidly over the town, Tod in tow. Soon it reached a steeply walled enclosure. Tod could see faint smoke rising from what looked like a giant oven. “If you have anything in mind, better make it quick,” he said, trying to sound more assured than he felt.
“They must release you in order to put you in the incinerator,” Bem said. “They won’t want to burn up a good trap. The moment they do that, zoom rapidly toward the trail.”
“Zoom? How do I do that?”
“The trail attracts you,” Wizard said. “In your present state of dissipation, that attraction should be enough to draw you to it. Go with the flow.”
“I’ll try,” Tod said. He had a sick premonition that this was to be his ignominious end.
The tractor halted at the incinerator. There was a large intake hopper. Air started whooshing in, like a vacuum cleaner.
The force field holding Tod clicked off. He started floating toward the hopper, about to be sucked in.
“Now!” Bem said.
Tod leaped back the way they had come, somehow bracing against the air. He grabbed the edge of the tractor and hauled himself over and past it, his hands sinking into it but gaining some slight purchase. He sailed into the air. Then something drew on him, and he picked up speed, floating toward the trail.
He was escaping, and Dib and Dab never missed him. He was an invisible spook. He sailed onward over the houses and gardens of the town, picking up speed.
He reached the trail terminus, and this time there was no trap. Safe!
“What now?” he asked with fake bravado as he crossed the threshold and the others come into view, as if materializing from nothing.
Veee caught him and drew him close, kissing him. That was exactly what he needed. He felt safe in her embrace.
Tod realized that Bem had not been doing much when the others checked their frames, but Bem had been there for Tod this time. Bem’s advice had been critical. “Thanks, Bem!”
“I had thought there must be reason for my continued presence,” Bem said. “I am glad to have been of service.”
“Now we must locate that man Bison,” Wizard said. “And persuade him to go home, thus severing his path.”
“To a disaffected wife? That may be tricky.”
“Consider it a challenge,” Vanja said.
“But the men indicated that Hellene may have had a change of heart,” Veee said. “That should count for something.”
Tod hoped so. He did not want to have to come to this future frame again. That had been too close a call.
Chapter 10:
Metastasis
They returned to the village to rest for the night. “Can you scry to locate Bison?” Tod asked Wizard.
“No. I need to be in contact with a person, or have a personal object before me, as I did when you saw the picture. That covered the personal history only up to the point the picture last saw the man. Where Bison went after coming here I can’t fathom.”
“We can ask around,” Vanja said. “Some villager surely knows. He’ll tell.” She flashed a fang briefly.
“Suppose it’s a woman?” Veee asked.
“Then Tod will have to ask her. I’m sure he can charm a woman when he really tries.”
“What, without a love potion?”
“Wizard will provide him one.”
They were having their fun again. “Suppose I have to make out with her?” Tod asked. “To get her to talk? Some villagers are canny bargainers.”
The girls exchanged a horrified look. “That would be a problem,” Veee said seriously.
“Maybe give her medicine to prevent vomiting?” Vanja suggested.
“I can make a spell for that,” Wizard said.
“You too, Brutus,” Tod muttered.
“Fascinating,” Bem said. “You are all teasing each other, knowing that you don’t mean what you say. Open duplicity that somehow enhances your appreciation of each other when it should be having the opposite effect.”
“It’s a bisexual thing,” Vanja said.
“Sometimes I almost wish I could become male or female just long enough to fathom the nuances.”
“Don’t risk it,” Tod said. “It would require a lifetime.”
“And probably ruin you for pattern formation,” Veee said.
“A horrible risk!” Bem agreed.
As it turned out, all Tod had to do was ask. Several villagers knew of Bison, who had served honorably on a recent mission, then retired to a neighboring village to farm. “He lost his home-world wife,” a buxom woman explained. “He is still hurting. Won’t touch any of us.” She smiled, inhaling. “Yet.”
Tod could see how leftover team members could get drawn into local relationships. The villagers lurked.
They walked to the other village. It turned out that Bison, distraught, had decided to suicide.
“We can’t let him do that,” Wizard said.
“Because the mission is not yet complete,” Tod agreed. “We need him to return to his frame so the trail will close off.”
“Won’t it shut down when he dies?” Veee asked.
That made
all of them pause. “Maybe we should just leave him alone,” Vanja said.
“Scry it,” Bem suggested.
Wizard did. “That will not complete our mission,” he announced. “It would be a losing ploy.”
“I’m relieved,” Veee said. “We’d be guilty of murder. But why does he need to live?”
They considered it as they set out to follow Bison’s route, Bem seining for the traces the man had left as he moved.
“If his trail shuts down whether he leaves or dies,” Vanja said, “what else can there be that relates to our mission?”
They passed it back and fourth, but were unable to come up with an answer.
“I am reminded of computerized card games,” Tod said. “In my boredom I have played many games of Klondike, Baker’s Dozen, and Free Cell, mainly. There is a program that signals the state of each game as Winnable, Unwinnable, Undetermined, Won, or Lost. I learned to watch that, and the moment it stopped saying Winnable, I backed off and tried another route. That enabled me to win almost every time. But sometimes it was like getting into a swamp. The program didn’t tell me what move to make, merely whether I could win. In effect it blocked out my wrong moves without clueing me in on the right ones. I could try everything, and nothing lead to victory. Yet I know there had to be a way. So I just kept plugging along until finally, mainly by trial and error I found the key and then went on to win. But here’s the thing: sometimes the obvious move was a loser regardless how it looked for immediate gain, and sometimes the right move seemed pointless, until it led deviously to a breakthrough. The Amoeba seems like that. We don’t understand why letting Bison die is the wrong move, but it is, and we need to find the right move.”
“Interesting analysis,” Bem said. “The Amoeba is silent, yet we are sufficiently attuned to it to know whether we are properly pursuing our mission. How does your Winnable adviser know the correct route?”
“I’ve never been sure of that. I assume it is like running water through a blocked sieve to locate the one or two open channels. When the last one is closed off, the program knows. It is not intelligent, merely tracking.”
“As seems to be the case with the Amoeba,” Wizard agreed. “From the time it summons us until we complete the mission, it is watching, informing us when we go wrong.”