Key to Chroma

by Piers Anthony

  "As are all here.” She smiled. “We understand you rather well, though you did surprise us by nullifying the stun signal. Now utilize the truce and see if we can persuade you. We would rather convert you than destroy you."

  "You have been trying to kill me all along. As you killed King Deal."

  "And others,” she agreed. “We do what is necessary, as do you. If the truce ends, you will seek to kill me and throw open the complex. I will seek to destroy you after torturing your beloved to make you reveal your remaining secrets. We both know it can get extremely ugly. Better to seek compromise, if this is feasible. You owe it to us to comprehend our rationale."

  "But if I comprehend it and reject it, you will not accede."

  "Not voluntarily.” She shrugged. “Perhaps you really do have a surprise that is beyond our ken. You have surprised us before. You have been uncommonly apt, even for your brood."

  "I had special training."

  She nodded. “We underestimated the effect of the dragon. Indeed, we had not known of animal Glamors."

  "Brood: Question?"

  "Come. I will explain."

  Havoc stepped out of the chamber. He took Gale's hand and squeezed it reassuringly. She had trusted him so far, laying her life on the line.

  "That is one reason we did not kill you outright,” Mneme said. “We want to know what it is you think you have that could defeat us, just in case there is even partial merit there."

  She conveyed them to a special chamber. “This is one of our laboratories. The details are somewhat technical, but I will simplify. We harvest the finest gametes, which are the viable sperm and egg cells, and cultivate them here."

  "Harvest?” Gale asked. “How?"

  "It is easy for the sperm. We send a specially equipped changeling woman to meet a promising man. She travels no fault with him, or requests a fourth, or simply visits him at night and seduces him. When he ejaculates in her, her adapted uterus takes in the sperm and holds it in temporary stasis until she returns to us."

  Both Havoc and Gale nodded. A lovely woman could readily collect a man's sperm. “Like a succubus,” Gale murmured.

  "But we leave his soul,” Mneme said with a smile. “We do not harm him at all. There have been no complaints."

  What virile man would complain about no fault sex with a lovely woman? “What of a woman?” Havoc asked.

  "It is more complicated for the eggs, for several reasons. On occasion a suitable woman visits the temple, seeking an alternate fourth. The temple may provide her with her dearest wish, in return for one of her ovaries."

  "Question?” Gale asked.

  "She may desire marriage to a particular man. She may wish to bear no more babies. She may be inclined sexually to her own gender. We have ways to facilitate such things without embarrassing a person. The deal is voluntary, and honored perfectly. Thus we have the ovary, which we place in a changeling woman, and encourage it to ripen an egg regularly. Such an ovary can produce for twenty years."

  "So you can make a baby every month?” Gale asked. She was more interested in this than Havoc, or perhaps interested in a different way.

  "An embryo every two weeks; we enhance conditions for the ovary so that it ripens eggs on a faster schedule, four times its normal rate."

  "Question?"

  "A woman normally has two ovaries, which alternate months."

  "Understanding. These are mated with the same sperm?"

  "Affirmation. This is what we call a brood. All the ripened eggs of a particular ovary matched with the sperm of a single donation. A full brood is potentially five hundred embryos. If the early ones prove to have flaws, that brood will be abridged."

  "So they really are as close as siblings,” Gale said.

  "Closer, because siblings are normally the product of different batches of sperm. A brood is from different sperm in the same batch. Not as close as identical twins, but similar to fraternal twins."

  Gale was silent. Havoc knew why; this was confirmation of the extreme similarity of changelings. Too close to breed safely with each other.

  The tour continued, but Havoc was more interested in the layout of the complex than in the details of winnowing gametes and establishing viable embryos. Where was the main gate? How many defensive personnel did it have?

  It was up to Gale to carry the dialogue. “Why do you do this? Why hide it?"

  "Why does anyone do anything? It's my job. We conceal it because it is not yet time for the world to know."

  "Who gave you this job?"

  "It was not a gift. I am the surviving member of a small administration brood. I was crafted to perform this task, just as Havoc was crafted to be a leader, and you to be the consort of a leader."

  "The bees!” Gale said. “The first queen cuts off the heads of the others, so she has no competition."

  Mneme smiled. “That is wasteful. We destroy unfit units, not fit ones. The others received different assignments elsewhere on the planet. I happened to be the one ready when the need for a new Mistress of the Complex arose. As each new administrator matures, I assign her where appropriate. At such time as I am no longer able to perform capably, I will be destroyed and a new one will assume the office."

  "And if we succeed in taking over this complex, you will be considered unable to perform."

  "If you take over, I will be dead. But that would be a tragedy because you are not an administrator."

  "Havoc will appoint one. He's good at that."

  Mneme glanced at Havoc, who was listening without participating. “Affirmation. He is literally a born leader. But there is none in the kingdom better at this than I; that's part of the point of our effort. We generate the best."

  Now Havoc spoke. “You assume that the Changeling complex will continue operation regardless. My inclination is to destroy it."

  "We are speaking academically, because you are unlikely to have the opportunity. My effort here is to persuade you to leave the complex alone, so that I will not have to destroy you."

  "Persuade me,” Havoc said.

  "I speak to rationale. Human beings are destructive. The planet of Charm has suffered grievously at human hands in the past thousand years. Some discipline must be established, so that we do not ruin this world the way we ruined Earth."

  "We ruined Earth?” Gale asked.

  "This is why Planet Earth was so desperate to colonize other worlds. There was little left at home. It may be why no second colony ship arrived: the wasted resources had finally been reduced below the point of viability for such an effort. So just as a king is needed to maintain order among Chroma that might otherwise wage internecine war, an authority is needed to limit the damage done by our species to the planet. Otherwise human tenure itself will be limited."

  Havoc was suddenly quite interested. He was aware of the manner villagers systematically cleared back forests and eliminated animals to make more room for themselves. Mentor the Dragon had made that clear; his kind had suffered. Havoc liked trees; he hated to see good ones cut down or burned out. But this was the first time anyone with a perspective independent from his had voiced such a sentiment.

  "But surely the answer is to have fewer people,” Gale said. “To stop requiring four children per family. But you are doing the opposite; you are making more people."

  "Qualification: we are substituting people. Every changeling is entered into a family in place of a fourth. We are not increasing the population so much as changing its nature."

  "You are spreading your—your broods across the planet, so that more and more changelings are replacing ordinary children,” Gale said. “Why? What do you expect all those changelings to do?"

  "We expect them to take over control of the human species, and establish a new order, governed sensibly by superior individuals. We are not far from the achievement of that objective."

  "You want to rule Charm yourself!"

  "We want changelings to rule Charm. I am satisfied with the job for which I was crafted: producing change
lings."

  "So you think changelings can do a better job."

  "I know they can. Look at Havoc; who could be a better king than he?"

  "I am not even doing it,” Havoc said. “Most of my tenure has been traveling on other errands—mainly searching for you, with an emulation left in my place."

  "Guided by your agenda,” Mneme said. “And you have succeeded in making the Chroma behave, and your sympathy for the natural life of the planet means you will act to conserve it. You have even enlisted the ungovernable Glamors in your effort. You are an example of the good changelings can do for Charm."

  "Yet you want to eliminate him,” Gale said.

  "Correction: I want to enlist his support. Only if that fails will I eliminate him."

  Gale viewed her with slitted eyes. “You want to make Havoc your puppet? So that you—or the complex—are the true ruler of the planet?"

  "Negation. I want to persuade him to keep our secret and leave us alone, so that the conquest by the changelings can become complete."

  "Comprehension,” Gale said. “If news gets out, the people will rebel, and start killing changelings, ruining your scheme."

  "Accuracy. The conquest must be complete before they realize."

  Havoc shook his head. “I did not want to be king, but was forced to serve. I do not want to oversee a takeover by changelings who owe their allegiance to this complex. I can prevent that by destroying it now. You have not persuaded me."

  Mneme sighed. “I regret this. Shall we terminate the truce?"

  They were standing in a hall between chambers. No other changeling personnel were in sight. “Not while you are within my range."

  "I am not in your range."

  She couldn't be a golem, because they were magic and this was a nonChroma region. She couldn't be an illusion for the same reason. What made her so sure? She had to know his capabilities. Except for his secret weapon.

  Havoc spied a fragment of stone on the floor. He picked it up. “When this touches the floor, the truce is over."

  "Agreement."

  He flipped the stone up. Mneme did not move. Neither did Havoc or Gale. But as the stone touched the floor, Havoc launched himself toward the woman.

  And collided with metal bars that shot up from the floor. Then met bars descending from the ceiling. Suddenly he was in a cage, separated from Mneme.

  He whirled to face the other way. But there were bars there too, separating him from Gale. In fact there were bars crossing the hall in several places, forming a series of cells that now confined all three of them.

  "I did warn you,” Mneme said. “You are captive. Will you now accede to my will?"

  Havoc grabbed the bars between himself and Gale. They were absolutely firm. This was obviously a special section, made for this purpose. Mneme had led them here, then offered to end the truce. She had outsmarted them.

  "Then we must become unpleasant,” the woman said. She glanced up. “Do it."

  A door opened in the side of the hall where Gale was trapped. Three muscular men emerged. Gale tried to dodge by them to escape, but the door closed. They advanced on her. She stepped into one, her awl plunging at his eye. She must have hidden that too well for them to find when they captured her before. But he caught her hand as the others grabbed her body. She tried to knee one, but he avoided it. These were changelings, and experienced in combat. They quickly had her helpless, one standing behind her with an arm around her neck, another squatting to hold her legs, the third holding her by one extended wrist.

  The third man brought out what looked like a large set of clippers with a screw-like attachment. He set the device on Gale's left wrist and turned the screw. The clipper blades closed above and below her wrist.

  "Interrogation,” Mneme said to Havoc. “How did you null our stun signal?"

  Havoc did not answer. He was searching for some way past the bars so that he could reach Gale.

  "Turn,” Mneme said.

  The man put his hand on the bar projecting from the screw and turned it one full circle. The clipper blades drove into Gale's wrist. She screamed in pain as blood flowed.

  "Will you accede?"

  It was time to make his move. Havoc closed his eyes and projected his mind. Trees! Accept me!

  Mneme evidently thought he was stalling. “Turn."

  The man turned the screw another notch. The blades pressed on through Gale's flesh and cut into tendons. She continued to struggle and scream, helplessly.

  "What is your secret ploy?"

  Havoc felt the acceptance of the trees. Power flowed to him as something dropped from him.

  "Turn."

  The man put his hand on the screw bar. Havoc put his two hands on the bars and exerted force. He pulled them apart. He stepped through the aperture.

  The screw-man never saw what hit him. His head hammered into the wall before he dropped to the floor. The other two men stared, startled. Havoc caught the forearm of one and the upper arm of the other and squeezed. His fingers were like dense wooden rods. The men screamed as their flesh pulped and their bones separated. They had been subjected to the same torture they had been using on Gale.

  Havoc turned to Gale. “Do it!” he shouted, buttressing it with his mind.

  Her eyes round, she paused in her screaming and focused. Light surrounded her. Her hair lifted from her head, as if suffused by invisible power. Her eyes glowed. Something fell from her.

  She looked at the clippers, still fastened to her wrist. She flexed her arm and they broke apart and clattered to the floor. The terrible crushed cuts stopped bleeding. She was healing herself at a seemingly impossible rate.

  Havoc turned to face Mneme, who had not moved. “I will answer your questions. We had the Translucent Chroma specialists block off our capacity to receive your stun signal. I will not accede to your authority. This is my secret ploy: I have become the Glamor of Trees, and Gale is the Glamor of Mosses and Lichen. The roster of Glamors is now complete through fourteen. We have breached your defense against Glamors by manifesting inside your complex."

  "Impossible! This is a nonChroma zone."

  "We are the first two nonChroma Glamors."

  She stared, unable to accept this. “There are no trees in here, and on Earth lichen is a symbiotic union of fungus with alga: different kingdoms."

  "This isn't Earth,” Gale said evenly. “None of the animal or plant species align perfectly; all are as we choose to categorize them here."

  "That may be. But how can you just become Glamors? This is ludicrous."

  Gale shook her head. “We analyzed the patterns of Chroma, numbers of legs, and the order of colonization of this planet. Two early categories that should have had Glamors were missing. We realized that this was because they could not represent themselves, and no person or animal had thought to represent them. So we assumed those roles, with their acquiescence, and will do right by them. They will in turn do right by us."

  Mneme shook her head, not accepting this.

  "Now you have a choice,” Havoc said. “Yield to me, throw open your main gate, and let our troops in to take over the complex. Or discover what trees and mosses can do to it, and what we can do to you."

  Mneme tried to run, but the bars restrained her. “Down!” she cried, and the bars started to lift and descend. But the ones Havoc had bent snagged, and the entire array ground to a stop. It had to be a counterbalanced mechanical mechanism similar to those in Triumph City, without a lot of leeway for error.

  Havoc stepped through the bent aperture, advanced to the next set of bars, and pulled two of them apart. “Yield,” he said. “I am not pleased with you.” He caught her left wrist and squeezed.

  Mneme did not answer. Havoc squeezed harder. Her flesh crushed inward and her bone cracked, but she met his gaze without flinching. He let her go. Her hand hung like a broken thing, but she would not yield to pain.

  "Do it,” Havoc said to Gale.

  She concentrated. Greenish color appeared on the bars and
floor. It was lichen, growing at an astonishing rate. In moments it furred all the nearby surfaces, and wafted a pale vapor upward. It coated the three fallen men, who began to change color. It also coated Mneme, causing her skin to develop an immediate rash. She coughed, choking on the colored air.

  "Soon everyone in the complex will be suffering similarly,” Havoc said. “How much discomfort can you tolerate?"

  The three men were coughing and retching miserably. But Neither Gale nor Havoc had any problem.

  Mneme considered a moment longer. “Unlike you, I am a realist.” She coughed. “What do you require?"

  "Make me an oath of fealty, and inform your personnel of the capitulation of the complex to King Havoc."

  "Why bother with an oath, if you mean to destroy me anyway?"

  "The oath will hold until you present your case for the survival of yourself or the complex. I will listen, then decide."

  Mneme stepped through the splayed bars to Havoc's former cell. She stooped to pick something up with her right hand, then went on to enter Gale's chamber. She stooped again, then inspected the three fallen men.

  She nodded. “Compromise. I will not make the oath, but will reinstitute the truce while we consider."

  Havoc glanced at Gale. The lichen paused, then began a retreat. The haze faded.

  "Bend the bars back, so they can retreat,” Mneme said.

  Havoc put his hands on the bars and slowly bent them back. He knew that he had barely begun to comprehend the powers his status as a Glamor brought him; strength was natural to him, so he had that, and flesh hardened like wood was natural to trees.

  When the four bent bars were straight, the rods descended into the floor, somewhat squeakily. Meanwhile Gale put her hands on Mneme's wrist, and the flesh started mending.

  "I would not have done that for you,” Mneme said.

  "I am more forgiving than Havoc is."

  "He is hard like a tree; you are soft like moss."

  "Agreement. We are well matched."

  "Considering your demand for an oath,” Mneme said. “It will not work. Were I to be so foolish as to make it, I would be deposed on the grounds that I have become physically or mentally incapacitated. No single person here can go counter to the objective of the complex."