Melody was unconscious only a moment. The human body adapted to strife. When its systems malfunctioned, it became horizontal. Then more of the depleted blood supply reached the brain, improving its performance. A fail-safe mechanism. Intriguing; Mintakans lacked this faculty, as they did not possess blood.
“God of Hosts,” Yael said. She was praying. Melody lay and listened, suffering a private revelation. The girl believed. She really did honor the God of Hosts, and believed in its beneficence, contrary to all reason. Yael thought the god would intervene to save her. No—that the god would safeguard her interests, intervening if that were required, letting her perish if that were best. And if she died, that god would take her into its bosom of hosts and recompense her for all her pain and doubt. It was an altogether naive and charming belief.
“And save Melody too,” Yael concluded.
That simple, sincere addendum struck Melody like the impact of a magnet. Despite everything, Yael had blessed Melody with her good will. Yael cared. Even as she lay dying.
“I wish I had your faith,” Melody said.
“You have it. You call it Tarot.”
A second impact, as hard as the first. Melody’s god was Tarot! Why had she never realized that? She prayed to her Tarot every day, calling it meditation.
“Yes, I worship the God of Tarot,” Melody said. “Do you resent that?”
“Why should I? It’s the same God.”
The same God. Melody could not deny it.
She gathered her strength and drew them up. “God is with us,” Melody said. “I have to believe that.”
After that the journey to the cabin was easier. The bleeding had slowed, and Melody’s consciousness remained clear. The door opened at her touch and slid into its frame. Now she realized that it was merely a convenience door and not airtight. When the atmospheric composition of the ship was changed, the air of the regular cabins changed with it, but the Captain’s office could be isolated. The moment the hostages gave up their present strategy of pursuit with the magnets, they could trap her with certainty by putting knockout vapor into the air system. They could protect themselves by donning masks. The odds were more against her than she had thought! But if she could mend herself and get to the Captain’s office and get Dash to the transfer unit…
There was the keening of another magnet traveling toward them at high speed.
Melody leaped into the cabin, hoping to seal it behind her before the magnet arrived. The metal would not hold the thing back long, but maybe she could catch it with her nose-beams as it burst through.
But her bad leg gave way, and she suffered a stab of pain that brought her to the floor halfway through the portal. She rolled and drew her legs up, her dress falling up in a fashion that would have invited impregnation in the presence of a male. She tried to get one hand on the panel as her feet cleared it, but could not.
The magnet shot into the room. It passed directly over her, stopped, and hovered in the center of the room. It was Slammer, and she knew why he hesitated: He had been deceived too many times by the rods she had scattered about. This time he wanted to be sure of his quarry before crushing it.
Slammer moved. But not as fast as before. Melody shoved her legs, propelling her body across the floor— and the magnet missed her. He was tired, after all his searching; he was running low on fuel and had to conserve!
Melody tried to orient her nose, but could not do it while lying on the floor, half on her side. Slammer was coming over her, ready to crush her between his body and the floor, where his magnetism was strongest. She reached up and flung her arms about him, dragging him down with her weight so that he could not get momentum for a strike. She weighed twice as much as the magnet and he was heated from his own exertions. Maybe she had a chance—
Slammer jerked back, but she clung, her fingernails scratching across his surface. Parts of the creature were rough, where his eating and breathing vents were; that gave her purchase. Her feet dragged along the deck, but she retained her hold.
Now the magnet was desperate. He shook back and forth violently, and puffs of burning hot air escaped from his vents. But still she hung on, knowing it was her only chance. Her face was against his metal, assisting her grip. But she could not get her nose focused on him.
Slammer dragged her to the wall and started banging her hands. Sudden pain shot up her arms; her fingers were being crushed! Then they turned, and it was her shoulder and head getting smashed. Little white sparks flew up inside her eyes; she was getting knocked out. But her albatross-weight was wearing the magnet down; his motions were slowing, and it was descending to the floor. Soon she would have him…
Slammer made a final effort. He jammed toward the wall, crushing her arm, then spun and pulled violently away. Melody threw her legs up to enclose him, but the blood from her reopened wound leaked out over his surface, and her hand slipped. Suddenly the magnet squirted free, leaving her to collapse.
She had almost beaten him. Almost. Now, her hands, arms, leg, and head hurting, she could only lie where she was. She lacked the strength to go after the creature.
Slammer paused across the room, recharging his power. The struggle had weakened him, but not quite enough. Blood was smeared on his surface, the four scrape-marks of her last despairing handhold forming a fingerpainting. One other scrape-mark curved below, like the scythe-blade of the Grim Reaper in the Death-card of the Tarot.
There was a stirring in the corner. The lid to the nest lifted, and little Beanball emerged. He started toward her.
Oh, no! “Beanball, stay out of this!” Melody screamed, trying to pull herself to her feet, but failing. The little magnet did not comprehend many human words yet, but should get the gist. If he came to her now, he could be crushed accidentally as she was struck. Or at least he would perceive her demise: a horrible thing for any youngling. Melody loved Beanball in her fashion, and knew that love was returned. “Get back in your nest! Close the lid!”
But Beanball continued, arriving just as Slammer stabilized. Melody had learned to read the reactions of magnets to some extent; Slammer was about to strike again. He would launch himself from across the room, so that she had no chance to stop him, and this time he would not miss the mark. “God of Hosts!” she repeated, staring at the friend who had become Death.
Slammer moved—and so did Beanball, leaping forward in an amazing burst of vitality. The two met, the massive and the tiny—and it was the massive that bounced away.
Melody, resigned to death, stared. What had happened?
Yael comprehended first. “Beanball’s defending us!”
Because Melody/Yael was the primary parent the little magnet had known. They had brought him coal and metal, and talked to him and been moved by his little successes. They had cherished him. Slammer had been there too, but more aloof, so was not the primary loyalty. As Slammer honored the Captain, so Beanball honored Melody. It was the magnet way. She was a surrogate mother. And so when the crisis of choice came, Beanball had to protect her—even against his father. Obvious—in retrospect. She had tamed the wrong magnet!
Slammer had rebounded. No physical force from the tiny magnet could have accounted for that. It had to be a conscious decision on Slammer’s part. Given the conflict between his orders and the welfare of his son, he had chosen the stronger loyalty.
For Slammer was no longer attacking. He hovered quiescently. He could easily have gotten around Beanball, or thrown him out of the way with one magnetic twitch. But he could not change the little magnet’s devotion—and perhaps did not want to, knowing it was justified. Perhaps, despite the ferocity of Slammer’s actions, his ultimate loyalty had been based on an extremely narrow margin of decision—and now the lead in favor of the Captain had reversed.
“Are you with us, Slammer?” Melody asked, petting Beanball, hardly daring to believe her fortune.
Slammer nodded. No indecision for him, once the balance changed!
“Then you know that those who sought to kill me ar
e false.”
Hesitation. Slammer’s decision had been based on a personal level, not a philosophic one.
“The Captain and the other officers are hostages,” Melody explained. “Captives of alien auras. Haven’t you noticed the changes in their imprints?”
Now the magnet nodded affirmatively. The change had not had significance for him before.
“Enemies have taken over their bodies. We must capture them and send away those enemies. Then your real masters will return. Do you understand?” Slammer nodded again, more positively. Melody drew herself upright, feeling good despite her bruises. “Then tell all the other magnets of this ship. You can do that, can’t you?” He nodded. “We must govern this ship until the real masters return.”
And Slammer was gone. Victory was theirs, for the magnets represented the ultimate disciplinary power aboard the ship. Whoever had their loyalty, had control.
The God of Hosts had answered.
PART II
MISTRESS OF SPACE
10. Lot of *
*notice: trouble in segment etamin*
—details?—
*discovery and capture of dash command by enemy*
—(chagrin!) who is backup command there?—
*slash, then quadpoint*
—conceal the news we cannot risk action yet—
*council will not favor further delay without explanation*
—we must gain advantage galaxy-wide! the situation in segment knyfh is not yet secure, and knyfh is more vital to our thrust than etamin action in etamin now will prejudice that more serious encounter perhaps the backup command in etamin can still salvage the aura we require this has more importance than may be apparent—
*under protest, I yield*
—appreciation, ast you always were an understanding entity I suppose the fact that your kind has five sexes makes you especially diplomatic—
*to call our situation five sexes is not quite correct*
—regrets I was trying to—
*actually, I regard this as an aspect of the lot of ast*
—yes, I am aware of that convention it is a good one, used in many spheres—
Compliments on a masterstroke of strategy, the Captain’s note read. Dash was unable to speak because of the mess Skot’s laser had made of his mouth. He was missing two front teeth, part of his lower lip, and a section of his tongue; at the moment he was not handsome. We thought the magnets were incorruptible.
“They are,” Melody said. “They remain loyal to their galaxy.” She kept her voice firm, not wanting him to know what the sight of his grotesque injury did to her. “Please step into the transfer unit.”
Without objection, Dash of Andromeda entered the box. He made no plea, no threat; he took his defeat in stride. She was proud of him for that—and dared not show him that, either. She limped over and threw the switch. Her shrapnel wound needed proper attention, and she had a headache and bruises all over her body from the fight with Slammer, but the present task was more important. She could not relax until the flagship was free of hostages.
The indicator on the machine swung down from 176 to 151, and the dominating aural family shifted. The alien aura had gone.
“I hope your new host is in good condition, Dash,” Melody murmured. The Andromedan had not been sent home, of course; this little unit lacked the power for interstellar projection, let alone intergalactic. Melody had oriented it on a backward colony planet circling close to Etamin. She had ascertained from Yael’s mind that there was a prison colony there that operated very hot mines, where presumably a number of desperate entities lost their auras. The Andromedans would not be able to do much in that situation, but would be well cared for until more permanent arrangements could be made.
Now Skot of Kade stepped forward to assist the man out, while Melody fought again to control her emotions. She had done it; she had sent Dash away! She would probably never encounter him again, and that hurt, despite the chance it had given her galaxy. Had love passed her by a second time?
The Captain seemed dazed. “Sir,” Skot said. “You are free now. How do you feel?”
But the Captain slumped, unconscious; Skot barely stopped him from hitting the deck.
“We’d better get a doctor,” Skot said. “Something’s wrong.”
“No,” Melody said firmly. “Transfer is harmless to the host. It’s probably just the sudden release, and the shock of his physical injury. The only available doctors are in the lower ship, and we can’t afford to advertise to the crew what has happened here. We can’t even notify Imperial Outworld, because the hostages there could intercept the message and cause trouble for us. As far as Outworld is concerned, this ship is and always was completely loyal—and as far as Andromeda is concerned, it remains secretly hostage.”
“More hostages?” Llume inquired. Skot had survived by keeping his laser trained on Captain Dash, thus slowing the organization of the pursuit of Melody, until Melody’s victory had relieved him. But Llume’s unscathed escape seemed like an act of the God of Hosts; it had surprised and gratified Melody. She liked Llume, and was glad that the magnets had not been assigned to kill her.
“Bound to be more hostages, in this ship and in the fleet. We can’t possibly run every crewman through this machine. We’ll just have to let them function as they are. So long as they don’t know the situation in the officers’ section, they probably won’t be any trouble. It is a necessary and I think reasonable gamble.”
They ran the other hostages through the unit. “That may become a lively prison,” Melody remarked. “But I don’t think they’ll be able to get word to their home galaxy in time to change anything here, and they won’t dare risk contacting the hostages of Outworld for fear of exposing them.”
At last Tiala, the original hostage, came up. “No,” Melody said. “You can’t go quite yet. You were the bait that brought me here—and I compliment you on your performance. Because of you, the whole resistance program of Outworld was betrayed. Yet there was substance in your lure: we need the information that is in your mind.”
“No,” Tiala said, backing off. “I don’t know anything.”
“My dear, I cannot afford to trust you,” Melody said. Her recent experiences had made her a good deal more cynical. “The survival of my galaxy may depend on what I can glean from your mind.”
“Please… I will tell you everything I can,” Tiala pleaded. “Only don’t destroy me! Let me go with the others.”
“My dear, I am not going to destroy you. I am merely going to make you temporarily hostage, until I have what I require. Then I will return to my present host, and send you after your friends.”
“Don’t you understand?” Tiala cried. “Hostaging damages the host-mind! Look at your Captain and his officers! They can’t function. It will take months for them to recover, and some may die.”
Melody looked around dismayed. “Months?”
“When an aura is forced on an unprepared host it is like rape. Even when the transferee departs, that host is—”
“Months! How can they run this ship?”
“They can’t,” Tiala said. “You’ll have to let them rest and give them rehabilitation treatments until their facilities are restored. If you try to push them, you’ll only hurt them worse. And me… you don’t have hostaging equipment. If you overwhelm my aura, it will be much worse. I may never recover.”
Melody considered. Tiala’s aura, like Llume’s was very much like her own, and that created a natural affinity. She did not want to hurt the Andromedan. “I am not certain I can believe you.”
“Put me under torture! Compulsion drugs! Anything. But don’t destroy my aura!”
Melody was forced to take the girl seriously. As a hostage, she ought to know the effects of hostaging. The Andromedan effort had been more brutal than Melody had chosen to believe, but since these aliens were planning to destroy the entire galaxy, why should they care about the welfare of their hostage hosts? No need to save the mind of a creatu
re who would shortly perish anyway.
“What is the secret of hostaging?” Melody asked.
“I do not know. We were told none of it so that we could never betray it. Even our allied Spheres don’t know the secret.”
“What Sphere does know it?”
“Sphere Dash. They discovered an Ancient site that they call Aposiopesis, one they had missed before, and there it was. There are many very good sites on their Imperial Planet, but they are very hard to penetrate safely. Perhaps Planet Dash was an Ancients’ military base or governing capital. So Dash has the secret, and the Council cooperates, because”—Tiala shrugged—“Andromeda needs the energy.”
“Sphere Dash,” Melody repeated thoughtfully. “It seems I sent the wrong aura away.”
Tiala smiled. “Yes. He is the only one who might know. He really is a captain 07 in Andromeda; had he succeeded here, he would have become an admiral.”
“A dashing captain,” Melody murmured with a brief smile. She could have been an admiral’s mate…
“And I,” Tiala continued. “I would have jumped rank to 06. Now I will settle gladly for my health.”
“Very well. Answer my questions honestly, and I will leave you that.”
“Then I would be traitor to my galaxy, and my Sphere of /.”
Melody glanced at her with annoyance. Did this alien think she could renege? “It seems you must choose between health and loyalty.”
“We have a convention in my Sphere,” Tiala said, and Melody was reminded that Andromeda was not organized into segments. Apparently they did not operate as efficiently as Milky Way species, so could not amalgamate into segments. If they had concentrated on efficient use of energy, instead of theft of it, they would have been better off. Was the entire Andromedan galaxy philosophically defective, that they could not perceive this basic truth?
But now she had, through her drift of thought, missed what Tiala was saying. “Would you restate that, please?” Melody asked.
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