Chaining the Lady c-2

by Piers Anthony

  “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 erectile 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

  —the day of reckoning may be on the wing aposiopesis wakes—

  “A-PO-SI-O-PE-SIS!” the massed vibration cried. “A-po-si-o-PE-sis! A-po-SI-O-PE-sis!”

  “God of Hosts!” Melody cried to herself as she sank.

  “And so we win,” Dash vibrated gently. Melody realized what sounded strange about him: In this host, he did not speak with the Dash inflection. “Because we are meant for each other, and the Ancients found us worthy.”

  “The Ancients merely required sufficiently high aura,” Melody replied. “They make no moral judgments.”

  “How can we be sure?” he asked. “To them, aura itself may be a state of morality.” And she could not answer.

  The platform moved well below the floor of the bog, descending on a slant. Melody watched the feet of the standing £ rise out of sight. All knew this was a historic event, a three-million-year breakthrough. Aposiopesis had answered.

  Below the opening, the well widened. Melody detected the vibrations of a counterweight rising. As their platform dropped lower, it spiraled outward, and the counterweight spiraled inward, rising to fill the hole above. It was a giant sophisticated airlock!

  As the valve screwed closed in its fashion, the water drained away and gas filled the chamber. Melody, in a nonbreathing host, could not analyze its type, but she was certain it was an inert substance, probably to protect the intricate mechanisms of the Ancients. Three million years—and still operative! What greater wonder could there be?

  Yet Melody was not so bemused by the mating and admittance as to forget her priorities. Dash was still her enemy, and in no case could she allow him to emerge with the secret science of the Ancients. Surely he would not permit her to use it to save her galaxy, either. Their battle had not yet been concluded.

  Already she felt the stirrings of masculinity within her, of aggression. This host was becoming uncomfortable. She had to do what she had to do before she lost her identity.

  But it was also possible that neither one of them would escape this site. The machinery had chosen whom to admit; why should it not choose whom to release? Melody doubted she could get out on her own.

  Melody looked around her. Huge as her present host was, this site was large in proportion. It was as if it had been constructed to accommodate £ alone. And that was impossible, because—

  Why was it impossible? The Ancients, according to the best modern research, had vanished approximately three million years before, from all across the galaxies. That was a long time ago, in terms of civilization, but a relatively short span geologically and paleontologically. There had been £ that long ago, and Mintakans, and Solarians, and all the rest. The fact was that the Ancients had been contemporaries of all the major modern sapients before these species developed highly organized technological cultures. It was almost as though the Ancients had to vacate before the modern cultures could rise, as the dinosaurs of Sphere Sol had passed (in most places) before the contemporary mammals, and the subsonic monsters of Mintaka before the sonics of Melody’s own species.

  But there the parallel broke down. The modern species were superior to the ancient ones. The small mammals had better brains and were physically better articulated than the large reptiles. The Ancients, on the other hand, had been superior to the moderns—so far ahead that even three million years later the gap had not been closed. No shift of galactic climate could have dislodged them. Their disappearance had not enabled more progressive cultures to arise; it had allowed inferior ones to take over the galactic cluster.

  Had there been any doubt of that, the mere experience of this site would have dissipated it. What a mechanism!

  She could not talk to Dash, for now they were in gas and the skin vibrations did not work. Had the £ been able to communicate linguistically in atmosphere, their relation with the Dash would have been entirely different.

  Yet it was as though this site had bee
n made with the £, not the Dash, in mind. It was at the bottom of the jelly-bog, where Dash could not readily go, and its gargantuan scale and mode of entry were suitable only for £. But when this was built, the £ had been primitive creatures. Only in the past hundred thousand Solarian years—twelve thousand real years—had their society ripened. Unless the Ancients had anticipated—but that was preposterous. Why should the Ancients have cared about the future of the £? Or about any of the modem cultures?

  If by some chance of indecipherable logic the Ancients, like gods, had cared about the then-primitive species of the galaxies, they would have done better to dismantle their sophisticated outposts. For it was the occasional discoveries of functioning Ancient sites that had triggered the phenomenal intergalactic wars, wreaking havoc among Spheres and segments. Without transfer technology—which seemed to stem entirely from Ancient science, as far as technological archaeologists had been able to determine —the Spheres would have continued regressing at the Fringes, and therefore been unable to make effective war against their neighbors. There would have been continuing peace, instead of the monstrous uncertainties of contemporary war.

  Why, then, had the Ancients left these sites so carefully preserved from degeneration? If not for the species to follow, for whom?

  And she realized: for the return of the Ancients themselves!

  She spun about, looking for an exit, but of course there was none. The plug had sealed the hole above, and now the platform had stopped its descent. They stood in a chamber like the bottom of a spiral oubliette, a deep well widest at the base. And the circular wall was fading out. It thinned into vapor, then vanished entirely, and they stood in a broad plaza. The vista extended on every side so far that her nonfocusing eyes could not see its end. This was no room; this was a city!

  Beside her, Dash had to be as bemused as she. Never in all known history of the two galaxies had such a thing been discovered. This planet had numerous Ancient sites, but they were broken-down relics, with few real artifacts. This—this was Aposiopesis Revealed!