Chaining the Lady c-2

by Piers Anthony

  This was surely the home base of the Ancient culture. It would take a planetary task force of specialists many years to explore the secrets of this amazing metropolis. Whoever came to comprehend it would control the universe!

  Melody felt a chill. Who could investigate this—except Sphere Dash? She could not; she could hardly hold on to this female host.

  Better that they both perish here, never emerging! They had not moved from their platform. Where would they go? There was so much here that they could get lost if they attempted to wander. There had to be some point of reference, some way to orient.

  Suddenly from the distance came a machine. At first it seemed formless, but then she saw a large screen on it, like a spaceship viewer. Of course: a communication device!

  Dash was paying close attention, she knew. The screen—actually a viewglobe—stopped a short distance away. Then an image appeared on it, shifting and chaotic. First it resembled a £, then a Dash. Disorganized sounds were manifested, and there was a peculiar medley of odors. A Solarian biped wavered and faded.

  Suddenly Melody caught on. She concentrated—and the figure firmed into the Queen of Energy card of the Cluster Tarot. The lovely bare-mammaried Solarian female, chained to the rock by the restless sea, her hair blowing out in the ocean wind.

  Dash’s body quivered. He saw it too! The chained lady resembled Yael of Dragon, whom he surely recognized.

  This was an animation globe, similar to those used by the Temples of Tarot, whose images were defined by the imaginations of the viewers. Flint of Outworld had encountered such a device in the Hyades site, and used it to evoke the formulas that brought parity to the inter-galactic scene. Too bad that site had been destroyed; later expeditions had never been able to make sense of the rubble. But this time, this time…

  Dash was already at work on it. A disciplined series of pictures appeared on the screen: Sphere Dash entities. No—these were merely his animations of the Ancients. Not knowing their actual nature, he rendered them in his own image. But the message was what counted. He was trying to fathom the ultimate secret of these mysterious people, and thus gain some hint of their technology. Otherwise he would not even know what questions to ask, just as a creature of a civilization of three Thousand years ago would not have known how to ask for Transfer. Had such knowledge been offered. As of course it had been, via these same sites.

  Melody watched. It gave her time to wrestle with her own problems of host-rejection and Galaxy-salvation. Maybe there would be some key here.

  Dash did an excellent job of zeroing in on the later stages of Ancient history. The network was extremely complex, because the Ancients had spanned the entire cluster—some twenty assorted galaxies and fragments. It had been the most extensive Empire ever known, with no Spherical regression. How had they managed that?

  Expertly, Dash located the key lines. Slowly the mechanisms of the Ancient disappearance emerged. There had been no invasion from any other galactic cluster; the Ancients were supreme. No devastating pandemic, no holocaustic war, no precipitous decline in the reproduction rate. They simply… resigned. They shut down their myriad bases carefully, returned to their home, and… faded out. Trillions of sapients disappeared from the universe.

  Why?

  Dash swiveled his eye to meet her gaze. On this they were united: The rationale of the Ancients remained as confusing as ever.

  He returned to the animation, questing for the reason, not the fact. This time he centered on it faster.

  And as the rationale came clear, Dash and Melody stared and listened and experienced with mounting incredulity and horror.

  Suddenly the animation cut off. Melody wasn’t certain which one of them had terminated it; it could have been either. Far better never to have known this terrible Ancient secret! Aposiopesis indeed!

  Melody blanked it from her mind. She had no intention of letting her own culture die, no matter what the alien psychology of the Ancients had been. Through Ancient science she could certainly redeem her galaxy.

  The problem was how to get what she needed without giving it first to Sphere Dash. No doubt she could learn from this globe how to build invincible spaceships that would conquer a galaxy, jumping from Sphere to Sphere by inanimate aural transfer—but Sphere Dash would build them first. She could discover how to mattermit whole planets across millions of light years, using minimal power—but Sphere Dash would do it first.

  What possible secret could she learn that would save her galaxy—without being subject to prior nullification by the enemy?

  She tried to concentrate. But the progression of pregnancy in her host was affecting her. She had mated; she was turning male. Her whole aura was reacting with the knowledge, suffering hostile incompatibility. It was a peculiar, awkward sensation; soon she would simply have to leave, no matter what.

  If only she could arrange to put Dash in a similar situation, to force him to vacate any hostage he took. If it were only possible to make hostaging itself impossible, so that only voluntary hosting could occur. The Andromedan effort would collapse, and Milky Way would be forever secure.

  More than that: She would have to do it retroactively, so that the damage already done could be undone. For Galaxy Milky Way had already fallen.

  Then it came to her. There was one secret Dash could not counter even if he shared it.

  This site was not merely informational. It was the key. Flint of Outworld had discovered that the Hyades site was one big transfer unit, controlled by thought. This £ site had to be another.

  In moments Dash would catch on, for he was not stupid, and he was almost as fiercely motivated as she was. She had to act now.

  “Oh Aposiopesis, God of the days of the Ancients,” she thought, couching it as a prayer because that was what, in essence, it was. The intensity of her need made it so. “Modify your transfer mechanism. Make every hostage entity dominate the invading aura—wherever transfer is used.” Her internal verbalizations were crude; the essence was her will. “Let the host-aura dominate, regardless.”

  But Dash had now understood the situation. He emanated a blast of negation that fuzzed the image in the globe; Melody’s thought could not get through.

  She fought him with her fading aura. Already it was down to his level; her own hostile discordance was phasing her out. She was 175 and declining; soon he would be stronger. Stop the hostaging! she willed.

  The picture changed back and forth. Light and dark thrust against each other, symbolic of her aura and his, evenly matched, neither prevailing. But slowly, inevitably, the darkness gained, absorbing more of the globe.

  Desperate, Melody cast about for some device, some insight that would help her. Her galaxy depended on her success! But the picture kept darkening. She hit him with aural :: blows, but he absorbed them; she set a oo trap, but he avoided it. He was thoroughly experienced in aural combat, and she could not overcome him.

  Better to destroy the whole site than to give him this victory. That was what Flint had done.

  She sent a blast of despairing hate at the globe—and it puffed into vapor.

  Amazed, she stared at the fading wisps of smoke. Beside her, Dash was umnoving, as surprised as she. Could the machine itself have been an illusion of animation?

  The answer came: Yes! This was the nature of animation. Their thoughts not only animated the pictures of the globe, they were the globe. And the entire city. All that really existed here was the oubliette—and the animation transfer unit and bank of information that surrounded it. Which was worth more than any city.

  Melody acted immediately. Under her guidance, the entire city exploded ferociously. The acrid odor of destruction was painful. The site seemed to be collapsing, burying them.

  And while Dash stood confused by the sheer threat and fury of the falling buildings and leaping flames, not certain how much was real, not yet aware that it was merely the dissolution of the animation, Melody thrust forward her overwhelming thought-urge-prayer: reverse hostaging!

&
nbsp; And her world dissolved.

  24. Milk of Way

  COUNCIL INITIATED PARTICIPATING * — / :: oo

  —aposiopesis has spoken—

  *andromeda is fallen*

  /the lady is chained/

  o o the monster strikes oo

  :: shame! ::

  CONCURRENCE

  Melody opened his eyes and sat up. His body felt stiff, and he had a headache, but he could function.

  He licked his lips. The flesh was raw, and one or two front teeth were missing. “Mush have veen some fight!” he muttered.

  He was in a round room. He was clothed—a Solarian affectation. Next to him several other Solarian males and one female lay on pallets. Melody recognized them: They were the hostages that had taken over the Ace of Swords of the fleet of Segment Etamin. He knew them only by their hostage identities: Hath of Conquest, Tiala of Oceana, all of the entities he had unsuccessfully tried to salvage from Andromedan domination. All were there except Captain Dash Boyd.

  For he was Captain Boyd! Melody had changed sex, and animated a male host. He must have had the subconscious desire to return here to the Segment Etamin fleet, and the Ancient unit had picked up that wish and transferred him here. What miracles of science the Ancients had!

  But what of his main intent, to abolish hostaging? Now he governed another hostage body! Well, he might still be able to do something.

  He drew upon his host-memory information and ascertained that this was a chamber within a Disk of Sador. The host-mind, unconscious at the time, had no memory of being brought here, but Melody was able to figure it out by reference to the older memories. Victorious Admiral Hammer of :: must have boarded the derelict Ace of Swords and salvaged all useful equipment, especially the serviceable hosts. He evidently knew enough about magnets and magnetism to handle Slammer and his companions, too.

  Melody, in control of this body without Hammer’s knowledge, could do some damage, maybe even taking over the ship. Then…

  He went to a water nozzle and activated it. A jet of cold, refreshing fluid spurted into his face, Sador didn’t worry about the inefficiency of such mechanisms; the surplus water was reclaimed, and an automatic cutoff prevented the device from operating in null-gravity conditions. Sador was a huge, degenerate Sphere; creature comforts had intruded on many of the military vessels. He was feeling better already.

  He touched the door-button, and the round door opened. This ship was of course designed for globular, wheeled Sadorians; push-buttons were satisfactory, but not pull-levers. It was no problem for this bipedal, twin-handed host, however.

  Melody emerged into a great central level, with ramps leading up and down. The wheeled creatures preferred the open range. But within the ordered physical system was chaos. The Sadors were hunched, unmoving; their wheels drawn in, as though in shock. He walked among them, unchallenged.

  What had happened? This whole ship was nonfunctioning!

  “Captain!” a Solarian voice called.

  Melody turned, his human ear orienting on the sound —his two ears; they gave him an immediate sense of direction. He spied a screened cell containing two men. “Skot! March!” he exclaimed, concentrating so as to avoid slurring his words. Those teeth were a problem!

  “Well, half right,” March said, satisfied. “But—who are you?”

  Melody smiled. “You may have some trouble believing this, so I’ll come at it obliquely. I’m not the Andromedan. Remember the Service of Termination?”

  March’s eyes widened. “Captain Boyd wouldn’t know about that! Only—”

  “Only Melody of Mintaka could know,” Skot put in. “Feel that aura!”

  How did Skot know about that? He hadn’t been there! Melody leaned closer, probing for the man’s aura—and it was not Skot of Kade. Yet it was familiar…

  March glanced across at him. “Maybe such things aren’t significant to you, Slammer, but I can’t feel the aura, and Melody is a female. She can’t—”

  “Slammer?” Melody demanded.

  Skot’s head nodded. “Admiral Hammer didn’t trust me in my natural body, so he transferred me to this ungainly thing. Poor Beanball is locked into another cell with my body; he must think I’m dead.”

  “But Skot—what—?”

  “He is gone,” Slammer said. “His ship was blasted. This is an empty host.”

  Add Skot of Kade to the growing list of entities to mourn! If only he hadn’t insisted on going on that mission…

  “We’ve been getting to know each other,” March said. “Slammer’s a nice guy; I never realized how smart the magnets were. But just now all hell broke loose. The hostages keeled over, then you came out. Who are you, really?”

  “The anti-hostage mechanism!” Melody exclaimed. “It worked!”

  Quickly Melody explained about his effort at the Ancient site in Andromeda. “Transfer is instant,” he concluded. “And so is this, it seems. I animated this host because the original personality is gone, so there is no host-mind to preempt it, and I am male, now.” He explained about that as he activated the cell-release.

  March shook his head in amazement. “I thought meeting a magnet in human form was the limit; now I have to get used to a beautiful girl in male-captain form.”

  “I never was a beautiful girl,” Melody said. “That was merely my host, Yael of Dragon.”

  March nodded thoughtfully. “I’d like to know—her.” Then he remembered something. “What was the Ancient secret? Why did they suicide, and why were you so horrified, even after three million years?”

  “Aposiopesis,” Melody said succinctly.

  “What does that mean?”

  “I will never tell,” Melody said with absolute seriousness. “If the truth were known, much of the drive of our own contemporary civilization would dissipate. We might, like them, give up. I don’t think we would, but we might. I refuse to gamble on it—and I doubt Dash Boyd will gamble either.” Then he returned to the business at hand. “Admiral Hammer and all the other hostages must have been nullified; that’s why they collapsed. Their host-minds may have taken over, but it’s too soon to—you know how the hostages suppress their hosts, even destroying them…”

  “Then we’d better get control of this ship fast,” March said. “Because pretty soon those hostages may be back on their wheels, if their hosts are really dead or dying.

  We’d better herd them into these cells until we’re sure.”

  “Yes,” Melody agreed.

  But already the Sador hosts were moving. A large one rolled up. Melody reached for a weapon, but found he had none, so waited alertly.

  “I am Rollo of Sador,” he said formally. “Former Rotary Officer of this ship. I now control the aura of Hammer of ::, though I am very weak.”

  Could he believe him? It might be that Hammer was pretending to have succumbed. But that would have been pointless. If he retained control, he should act to assert control of the ship. It was possible that the :: had not repressed his host-aura as viciously as some, so that Rollo remained sane. If so, Hammer was not only competent, but pretty decent for an Andromedan. Melody decided that the risk was worthwhile. Apparently the human auras had faded out only after the oppressive Andromedan auras had departed, as though beaten into such dependency they were helpless without alien support. But there was a difference between individuals, and there could, indeed, be native host-personalities to take over. Those who were mad would now plunge their erstwhile masters into hell; those who had been treated more kindly would respond in kind.

  He did not know what a Rotary Officer was in Sadorian terms, but since Sador was a circular culture like Polaris it seemed appropriate. It was probably equivalent to Captain.

  “I am Melody of Mintaka, temporary Admiral of the Etamin fleet,” he replied. “I believe we have won the war by recovering all hostages. But we shall have to take stock and reorganize.”

  “My guest aura informs me that there is one you will wish to meet,” Rollo said. “A companion of the Milk of Wa
y. Please wheel along this vector.”

  Melody hesitated again, but decided to go along. “Free all prisoners and ascertain their identities,” he told March. “See if you can locate Slammer’s natural body. Be alert.”

  March nodded. “Yes, sir.” He knew as well as Melody did that the situation remained highly flexible; some hostages might remain in power. But due care should suffice.

  Melody was sure that a similar confusion existed all over the Milky Way galaxy as the counterhostage impulse took effect. But out of this chaos would emerge victory, the salvation of his galaxy. Again he marveled: What powers the Ancients had, yet how carefully guarded!

  Melody accompanied the Sador to another level of the ship. Here, alone in a cell, sat a breathtakingly lovely woman in a simple, ragged dress. Her hair was long and brown, her features even, and her body lithe yet full-fleshed. There were some bruises on her, as if she had suffered a beating in the past few days, and one leg was bandaged. But these imperfections seemed only to enhance the general splendor of her person. Melody had never seen such beauty in a Solarian female before, and it did something to him. He experienced a nascent urgency.

  Rollo’s wheel whirred. “The situation has changed,” he said. “Here is a friend.”

  The girl looked up, her glance cold. “Forget it, Hammer,” she snapped. “Dash and I aren’t on the same side any more. You know that.”

  Melody came close to the cell-screen. His aura interacted with that of the prisoner. The two auras were amazingly similar. “Llume!” he exclaimed. “In Yael’s body!”

  Startled, the girl jumped to her feet, her breasts bouncing. God of Hosts! Melody thought. Every motion she makes—I wish I could take her and— “That aura! So like my own, but so strong—impossible!”

  “I depart,” Rollo whirred discreetly. “The cell is open.”