"Cowardly?" he echoed, raising an eyebrow at her bluntness.
"Yes, cowardly," Norah said, confident in her choice of words. "This is an unknown; there's no question about that. We don't know what it is or what it will do; there's no question about that either. But it's the fact that we don't know that's the reason we should go ahead and assemble it. We could study the separate parts and maybe even figure out how they're able to signal each other across thousands of light years, and there are all kinds of things we might learn from that. But that could be only a fraction of what we might learn from having the whole thing together in one piece, one unit. Not going through with it because we're afraid of what it might be—to me, that shows a lack of courage. It's against everything that science is meant to be about. It's the kind of thing that used to make my people the prisoners of fear and superstition, and—"
All at once, as if startled at herself, Norah fell silent and looked off, abruptly seeming self-conscious.
With a gentle concern, Vashar reached across the table and touched her hand. His touch seemed to startle her as much as whatever was suddenly on her mind. She looked back at him through widened eyes. She looked at his hand on hers, then back up at him, still oddly speechless. "What is it?" Vashar asked.
Summoning back her voice, Norah replied, "I'm sorry, it's just... I'm speechifying now and I must sound very pompous. When I do that, I get myself into trouble sometimes. I went into a speech like that on the Council Board, right in front of the president, chewing out the dissenters on the Council, practically calling them cowards to their faces. I was so mortified, but I couldn't help myself. I think it's wrong for people of science to fear what's strange and unknown. I was afraid the president wouldn't agree with me, that she'd have me removed."
Subtly grinning, Vashar asked, "And what did the president do?"
"She ordered me to pack my bags—and come here."
Vashar gave a small warm chuckle at that and gave Norah's hand a squeeze. She almost gasped, but stifled her reaction. "Ah, you see," he said. "Courage in the face of the unknown brings rewards."
Norah's self-consciousness melted at his lingering touch, at the warmth of his smile and his little laugh. "I hope a reward is really what we get."
"For me," said Vashar, "the reward has already come. I have known the company of a most charming and intelligent woman from a distant world."
Vashar pulled his hand away, but Norah would not have minded at all if he had kept it right where it was. "You wouldn't be so charmed," she said, "if you knew everything they've been saying on Earth."
Swirling the wine in his goblet before taking another sip, Vashar asked, "What have they been saying?"
Norah returned to her carefully measured tone and replied, "Some of us—the ones I think are cowards—have been saying that if the device is a weapon, it's all to the good that it's being activated on Sarma, where you're all warriors. Let the Sarmians deal with it, they say; it's what they were bred for. If it starts killing and destroying—" And she stopped herself again, wanting to look away once more, this time in embarrassment and dismay. But something about the sparkle in Vashar's eyes held her gaze on him.
"If it starts destroying, let us be the ones to bear the brunt and learn to control it, for we as warriors are more expendable than Earth," he finished.
His voice carried no hint of rancor, offense, or resentment, but Norah could not help feeling ashamed. "I'm sorry," she said. "I shouldn't even have brought it up."
"Do not be sorry," Vashar replied. "Do you know what some of us say about activating the device here? They also say it is all to the good, and they also say it is because we are a world of warriors. If it is a weapon, they argue, it truly belongs here, the better to strengthen us, the better to arm us in any battle against the other planets with which we have clashed in the past. Old aggressions, I fear, are as stubborn as old fears and superstitions. We are not always so far removed from our history as we think."
"I'm not proud of some of my people for that," Norah admitted.
"And if you wish to speak of pomposity and arrogance, I should not wish you to hear some of the things that are said in our governing halls," Vashar admitted in return. "It appears we have more in common than our distant ancestry, Dr. Slattery."
"That's certainly how it looks, Your Lordship."
A softness came over Vashar's handsome face; a softness and a kindness born of what Norah sensed was a genuine fondness. "Perhaps," he suggested, "when we are outside of our official capacities, you would care to address me as something other than 'Your Lordship.' Would it please you to address me as just Vashar?"
Norah could not help but smile openly at that. It felt as wonderful as the touch of his hand. "I actually would like that... Vashar."
"Then so shall it be... Norah.” He smiled in return. "And I am sure, now that you are properly fed and settled, you are anxious to have a first look at the almost-completed device before the other functionaries arrive and the last piece is delivered."
Norah nodded. "I'd like that, yes."
"Then let us away to the ballroom of the estate, which for this purpose has been made an amphitheatre," he said.
And Vashar rose and helped Norah up from her seat to lead her from the dining hall to the amphitheatre. In his most courtly manner, he escorted her with her arm linked with his, and in the back of her mind Norah felt again like the slender, glass-slippered girl in the fairy tale.
_______________
The ballroom was a large space with windows that reached from floor to ceiling. Norah tried to imagine what kind of ball a race of warriors would give. How would they behave? How would they dress? How would they dance? What would the music be like? She felt at a disadvantage somewhat. In her studies of the technologies of other worlds, she had not familiarized herself to any great extent with other parts of their culture. She would have to ask Vashar about what exactly went on in a Sarmian ballroom when the opportunity arose. In the meantime, other things called for her attention.
On one side of the room, rows of tiered seats and a section of other seats behind a separate dais had been installed for the viewing of what stood on the other side. Mounted in a sturdy metallic base on a raised, stage-like platform was the almost-complete circle of components forged of unknown metal alloys, which Norah guessed were probably mixed in a zero-gravity environment. It had been well-known for centuries that metals that would not ordinarily mix in the gravity well of a planet could be combined in zero-G. There could be all sorts of exotic metal combinations in this apparatus, and all sorts of other interesting and novel compounds as well. All that was missing, if one stood directly in front of the structure between it and the seats, was the upper right-hand section of the circle. One of the three already-assembled parts was the one found here on the sprawling grounds of this very estate. Once the original part still to come from Sigma Cephei was in place, the Shaper device would be finished—for good or ill.
"Do you feel that?" asked Vashar at Norah's side. "Even now, unfinished, its circle not yet closed... it hums."
Norah smiled, lost in fascination. He was right. There was a distinct vibration in the air, and it was coming unmistakably from the alien artifact. She could just barely pick up the hum at the lower register of her hearing, but perhaps even more distinct was the low buzzing at the base of her neck and in the pit of her stomach. It was not unpleasant. It was almost hypnotic. And the glow and shimmer from inside the circuits appeared to have a rhythm of its own, a flow and pulse that Norah could swear reminded her of blood pumping through veins and arteries. She glanced over at Vashar and saw her own smile reflected in his. "I've never felt anything like that," she said.
"There is a levitator on the stage," he said. "You may use it to examine the connection if you like."
"Yes," she said in an almost dreamy voice, and stepped across the space between seating and stage and up onto the platform. Next to the alien arc, a circular dish-like device rested on the stage. From the edge of th
e dish, a tall stalk extended, with a control panel on its end. Norah stepped into the dish of the levitator and touched her fingertips to the control panel, commanding the device to lift her up. In a couple of seconds it had her hovering at the unfinished part of the device, the empty space where the final arc of the circle would be attached. She tapped some other commands on the levitator's controls and it projected holographic readouts of the ends of the arc and the parts that were already joined. She examined the microscopic and molecular readings and the schematics of the exposed circuitry and connections. She recognized many of the compounds that the sensors had detected and mentally noted the substances that were not recognized. And one other thing captivated her the most.
"The way these parts fit together... it seems almost organic, doesn't it?" she marveled. "These compounds—some of them almost seen to mimic some of the functions of proteins. The way the pieces fit together at the molecular level, they're made to blend and combine seamlessly and work like the parts of an organ system in a living body. It's like a machine simulating life, the way it would in the kind of android that's just in the theoretical stages for us." Norah looked again at the way the parts were made to fit together, like the parts of some mysterious organism. The way they combined reminded her of something, and she was loath to say what it was. She only looked down at Vashar, at the look that played upon his handsome face, and wondered if he had enough of a scientific background to have made the same association.
Vashar added to the tingle that the unfinished machine gave off when he called up to her, "Touch it, Norah. Put your hand on it and feel it." Looking down at him, she saw him place his hand on one arc of the device and shut his eyes, as if some invisible massaging hand were working its way down his back. Her curiosity heightened all the more, Norah commanded the levitator to bring her closer to the device. She wondered what would happen if she touched one of the ends. She had not heard of any ill effects from anyone trying it while the pieces were apart, and it had not occurred to her to ask if anyone had tried it now that they were together. She opted against the risk and reached up and out to put her hand on the upper arc. At once, a powerful feeling thrilled its way through her body, making her eyes bulge for a moment until they fell shut—and the sensation throbbed its way up and down her spine as if it were an instrument being played by some unseen musician.
They stood that way in silence, Norah floating above the stage and Vashar standing below her, both of them laying hands on the arcane device. They could not say how much time passed wordlessly with the emanations of the machine singing in their bodies. Though she still did not put it into words, Norah could not help comparing the sensation to an uncanny sort of foreplay, as if the mechanism were somehow preparing to make love to them. She almost wanted to laugh at the thought, it was so absurd. But then, this was as thoroughly alien a thing as Norah or anyone else had ever found. They were faced with something made for purposes completely unknown.
At length—how long, she could only guess—Norah somehow found it in herself to pry her hand away from the surface of the device and make the levitator take her back down to the stage. The soft sound of the levitator touching down made Vashar reluctantly take away his own hand and face her with the look of a man waking from a very pleasant dream.
Stepping off the dish, Norah said, almost breathlessly, "And people think this is a weapon?"
Vashar replied, "The military thinking is that it is a device meant to subdue opposition, quell resistance and aggression, remove an enemy's will to do battle."
Norah shook her head at the thought. "That is what the military would think, isn't it? And that's where people like me come in. It's a big assumption on their part, thinking that the nervous system, the endocrine system and neurotransmitters of every sentient life form—no doubt including some species we've never even met—would all work exactly the same. Somewhere there would be an exception."
"Perhaps," Vashar allowed. "And perhaps the device was designed to operate on specific organisms, such as our two related species and others similar to us."
Norah sighed and passed her fingers through her hair. "I guess that's a possibility too. Add it to the list of mysteries."
"Still," said Vashar, keeping his eyes fixed on her, "the feeling is most extraordinary, is it not?"
She met his eyes, nodding, keeping fresh in her mind the sensations that the device gave her—the sensation that they shared. "Extraordinary. That's a good word for it."
They stood quietly together at the side of the alleged Shaper device, agreeing on the extraordinary nature of it. Other words to describe it hung unspoken between them. Tantalizing. Sensual. Arousing. Sexy. Norah could see Vashar's response to it on his face, and tried to imagine what his other responses, further down his body, might be. The leggings of his suit did not disclose what might be going on beneath them, but Norah had heard things about Sarmian men and how they were as well-equipped for pleasure between the sheets as for punishment on the battlefield. She was certain of her own response in the corresponding regions. Things were getting rather moist under her own garments—though, if she were honest, she had felt that way ever since watching his hologram. The experience of the Shaper device had only made it more acute.
_______________
Vashar walked Norah out of the ballroom to her accommodations, trying his best along the way to ignore the stiffness under his leggings. The attempt did not meet with complete success, and once he had wished Norah a pleasant rest before dinner, he quickly returned to his private suite, stripped off his suit, and relieved himself of the pent-up feelings from the time he’d spent with Norah in the ballroom.
Overnight, the invited guests from other regions of Sarma and other planets continued to arrive, along with chosen members of the media covering the event. The newly enthroned King of Sarma and his new human consort, who were quickly becoming the talk of known space, caused a stir of their own when they arrived by royal floater with the king's guards attending them. The guests, after a formal reception in the dining hall, quickly filed into the ballroom, where most of the attendees filled the tiered seats and the king and consort were seated at the dais. Interspersed across the room and stationed at the portals were Sarmian warriors, fully armored and armed and ready for anything. The king's personal guard stood behind him and his consort at the dais. The anticipation in the air felt almost like the hum of the device itself.
Norah and Vashar joined the delegation of scientists from Sigma Cephei on stage to put the last part of the device in place, and Norah's thoughts turned back to the earlier part of the day. During the proceedings Norah had had a chance to talk with King Dantar and his bride-to-be, Gwendolyn Rush, an Earth woman not unlike herself. Each of them was a member of a scientific discipline. Gwendolyn was an archaeologist, and the story in general circulation—which she did not deny—had it that she had been abducted from an archaeological dig for Dantar to court her. He must have courted her very well indeed, for she had somehow consented, even after he'd had her kidnapped, to be his queen, and she had recently announced his support for her plans to build a new Sarmian University. Norah was especially intrigued to see that Gwendolyn was a woman of her own physical type, full and round of figure. It made her consider further what possibilities might exist for her with a hard and sinewy Sarmian man—perhaps even the one who had so graciously made her his personal guest. Throughout the little gala, Norah continually stole glances at Vashar while he entertained the king and the attending scientists, and had a couple of times found him casting a gaze in her direction. And her mind kept returning to their shared experience of touching the Shaper device.
After the requisite speeches from King Dantar and from Vashar about the significance of their find and the interstellar and cosmic importance of their reason for being here, Norah and the Cepheid scientists—tall, willowy, long-haired humanoid beings with coarse brown and almond-colored skin and eyes that were all jet-black with no whites—conferred about the final linkage of the remai
ning part of the device and the energy fluctuations that they detected from it and the other segments. The flux of energy in the segments curved higher with all four parts in the same place, as if they were all waiting to be united. After it was ascertained that the buildup was not dangerous, all that remained was the lifting and placement of the last piece.
In deference to the Cepheids, from whose planet the last piece came, Norah stood by and used her linker to monitor their work holographically while they levitated themselves up to fit the segment in place. With Vashar at her side and their distinguished audience watching in a nearly breathless hush, Norah observed the display of the molecules of the last piece knitting themselves together with the pieces to which it was joined. She called out everything that she saw, and her pulse quickened by the second. She had no doubt that everyone else in the amphitheatre was feeling the same way. When she found that the molecular bonding was complete, she and Vashar turned their gaze together to the completed circle of alien technology. Just as the Cepheids lowered themselves to the stage, the hum of the device ceased to be subtle. It rose steadily in volume until it was a rumbling, throbbing, pulsing bass that every being in the room could feel in its bones, cartilage, exoskeleton, protoplasm, or whatever structure its body possessed. Voices began to rise along with the hum. Beings cried out in surprise, fear, anxiety, dismay, even arousal. From the corners of her eyes, Norah saw the king's guards raising their weapons.
The rising hum reached a volume that made it the prevailing sound in the room and remained there. At the same time, the pulsing of light along the circuit patterns of the device became an ever-brightening glow, and its rhythm quickened. Norah remembered how it had seemed like a bloodstream of light, and now it seemed like the racing blood of a heart beating faster and faster. The dazzling shimmer poured out into the ballroom, making those with eyes squint and flinch and raise hands and appendages to cover their faces. The flowing light and the celestial humming became everything... until there was more.
Arranged Marriage To The Rogue (Victorian Romance) Page 11
