"That was the only reason you came on to me? To get back here?" For she had turned out to be eminently seduceable in the Monster state, and Ronald had enjoyed the experience more than Helen would have thought was fitting.
"No. I was also afraid you'd pull some crazy male ploy and jeopardize the welfare of the Bands. So I wanted to be on the scene to make sure the Bands survive. Just in case."
Ronald distrusted that. She was correct in her suspicion of his "crazy male ploy," but there would be little she could do to stop it in Band form. She might like her Band host, but why would the Solarian authorities care about her preferences? They must have had more compelling reason to accede to this unnecessary third Transfer; they would hardly care if any Bands got wiped out near the Site. That most likely meant they were still using her to explore the extent of his treason.
"That's all?" he asked. "You don't care about the Monsters? Whether they get the Ancient Site?"
"As a professional, I care. That's my mission. But as a person, I'd rather see the Site in the possession of the Bands. I'm sorry your program of resistance didn't succeed."
Could he have misjudged her motive? It was becoming more important to know. "I need to acquaint more Bands with the situation. All my prior recruits except one are gone. There is a shrine on Moon Glow where educated Bands congregate—"
"I'll go with you," she flashed. "After what has happened, they need explanation and reassurance. And of course the warning to stay clear of Moon Dinge and its orbit. I hate to have the Monsters permanently preempting any part of the Band System, but it's a lesser evil than the extinction of the Band society."
They set off for Moon Glow. "I thought you might be more interested in promoting the Solarian cause," Rondl flashed, still fishing for her true motive.
"Like you, I was converted to the Band cause. I really hoped your program to turn the Monsters back would work. Perhaps I dawdled deliberately, praying that no other action would be necessary."
Rondl felt increasingly guilty about his lie to her. She certainly seemed to be playing it straight with him. Yet he hesitated to tell her the truth even now. She might be bait for a trap, getting him to. confess in time for the Monsters to correct their thrust and nail the real Ancient Site.
In due course they arrived at Moon Glow. The Monsters were departing; the big, clumsy ships were accelerating outward toward the orbit of Dinge. The moon was not directly out from Glow; that happened only rarely. But the location of the Ancient Site he had provided was fairly convenient. The ships thrust outward while allowing orbital inertia to carry them forward. With proper coordination of vectors, they would swing into the vicinity of the Ancient Site without great waste of momentum. The maneuver seemed ponderous, because of the seeming anomalies of orbiting that affected the massive ships.
"It's working," Tangt flashed. "The Monsters are vacating the other moons!"
So it seemed. But would it have continued working, had he provided the real location of the Site? Rondl had assumed that the Monsters would not long be content with the genuine Site; that they would sooner or later clear the System of Bands, as if the Bands were so many annoying insects. So appeasement was not the long-range answer. Yet Rondl was not sure—and if he was wrong—
As they homed in on Moon Glow, there were distant flashes in space. "What is that?" Tangt asked. "This host is far better at visual perception than the jelly-fluid eyes of the Monsters are, but I can't tell—"
Now at last he had to reveal it. "The trap has sprung," Rondl replied. "The Solarians attacked a Bellatrixian enclave. That has prompted Bellatrixian measures of defense."
"Bellatrixian?" she flashed blankly.
"Remember the aliens who made the cave-lighting system? Huge sapient grasshoppers with manual dexterity? They are not pacifists."
"Of course I know who they are! But why should Solarians attack them?"
She really did not seem to know. "They might be considered rivals for possession and exploitation of the Ancient Site."
"If the Bellatrixians had wanted the Site, they could have taken it centuries ago! They were content to trade peacefully here, however aggressive they may be elsewhere. They don't believe in appropriating the resources of peaceful Spheres."
"All this is true. But I suspect the Solarians have foolishly provoked the Bellatrixians to armed reprisal."
"This makes no sense at all!" she flashed. "The Solarians want the Site, not inter-Sphere war."
"I fear I will have to explain," Rondl flashed back. Oh, she was not going to like this at all! "The location of the Ancient Site we gave the Monsters was actually the location of the Bellatrix enclave. Too bad the Monsters were so eager to move in that they did not cross-check coordinates."
"The Bellatrix enclave! But if Solarian ships converge on it in force—"
"And perform their initial bombardment of survey detonations—" Rondl added.
"And start landing ships and disgorging tanks—why, that would cause an explosive reaction!"
"That was my assessment of the situation. I fear we have an inter-Sphere space battle in present progress."
"But how could you make a mistake like that? You said you knew where the Site was!"
"I do know. It was no mistake."
"No mistake! You mean the Bellatrixians already possess the Site? They built their enclave on it?"
"No, the Site is elsewhere."
"You deliberately—"
"I felt the Bellatrixians might do the job the Bands could not: drive out the Monsters."
"Then you lied to me! And caused me to lie to the Solarians!"
"So it seems." She certainly seemed to be surprised and chagrined by events, which suggested that she had not been playing a double game with him. The snafu theory of the bureaucracy's failure to act must be correct. He had been lucky there. Too bad he felt so guilty!
"Why?" she demanded, distracted.
"Because I do not believe appeasement is effective against Monsters. The only way the Bands can be saved is if they use the resources of the Ancient Site to drive off the Solarians."
"But they can't, because the Monsters already control the location of the Site. The Bands need the Site to win control of the Site. It's that vicious circle we discussed before."
"The Monsters just vacated that region. The Bands can now move in."
"Where is the Site?" she demanded.
"Here on Moon Glow."
She flew flashless, mulling that over. Now the lie was out, and it was too late for her to correct it. The trap had sprung; Monster blood had been shed.
"You realize that now we can never go back?" she demanded after a time.
"Did you want to?"
"Certainly—for a while. To wrap up my affairs."
"We'll go back on schedule, when our auras are recalled. We have no choice, since we cannot remain indefinitely in alien hosts." Actually, Rondl was contemplating exactly that: to allow his aura slowly to fade out, until he became his host and had no further recollection of his origin. It was as peaceful a way to expire as existed.
"We'll go back to mind-destroying interrogation and imprisonment and possible aura-wipe so that our vacant bodies can be used as hosts for others, for more loyal visitors or alien Transfers. You have doomed us!"
"Doomed me. Not you. You were innocent; interrogation will reveal that."
"No. I conspired against the Monsters too. I just happened to compromise more than you did. I tried to buy off the Monsters rather than fight them. I failed to be properly suspicious of your motives, so I am culpable too. Now the fight is on."
"But you did want the Monsters to have the Site. That's worth something."
"Not much. I felt that giving them the Site would be the least injurious course. That's not the same as liking it. I like your way."
"You like getting lied to?"
"That, no, though I should be used to it by now, from men. I thought we had an accord. I thought you trusted me as I trusted you. I see now I was foolish."
Not half as foolish as Rondl had been, he thought. He had mistrusted the motive of Speed, the Human Chief, during the episode of the telepathic dog. Speed had been honest. Now he had done the same with Tangt, again wronging an honest person. What mischief lay in such unfounded suspicion! "If I had been sure of your motive, I would not have lied to you. Now I'm sorry I did."
"And our liaison in Solarian host—that, too, a lie?"
"My Solarian wife sent me."
"Beware of dealing with Monsters!" she exclaimed. Then: "Your wife sent you?"
"She suspected your motive, so felt I should allow myself to seem smitten by you. To give you false security. So I played along."
Another facet registered. "You were so slow responding. Before you came to me, did she—?"
"Yes. She wants my child."
"And I thought I was losing my touch!" She dimmed, the Band equivalent of a half-rueful head-shake. "I wonder what I could have done with you, given a fair chance."
"Considerable," Rondl admitted. "Yet even as it was, it was quite—"
"It never occurred to either of you that I might actually be attracted to you? That I might like you for yourself?"
"You're married—"
"One term, not to be renewed. No present significance. I assumed it was the same with you. It's the time for explorations, and considering the unique experience we shared—" She dimmed more abruptly, the equivalent of a shrug.
"You are a trained Transfer agent," Rondl continued defensively. "You should be in control of your emotions. Most agents are. I assumed you were using me."
"I was certainly a fool. Normally I don't get involved with associates. You seemed to be the one person who understood the lure of the Band society. That made you special. I suppose I just wanted to believe in you."
Rondl felt worse and worse. Had he sprung a trap upon himself? "I wanted to save the Bands above all else. I may have been blinded by that. I misjudged you, and I'm sincerely sorry. You were less important than the Bands."
She relaxed, her flight becoming smoother. "I understand. It's the same with me. If you had not supported the Bands so firmly, I would not have been interested in you. But if only you had trusted me, it would have been so much better."
So his lie had ruined what could have been a good relationship—more than good! Yet what else could he have done? He could not even now trust her completely. After all, what would she have stood to gain, under present circumstances, by berating him? Her best course, if she was not in agreement with him, would be to win his trust now, in case the opportunity should arrive to reverse the disaster he had fashioned. He wasn't sure what she could do at this stage, for surely the Solarian ships were being destroyed by the firepower of the Bellatrix enclave, but he remained wary. How sad that suspicion should so interfere with interpersonal relations! Yet this, too, was a cross that Monsters necessarily bore.
Bad as it was, this was not the whole of it. "This may not be a consolation," Rondl flashed, "but I do—did—love my Band mate, Cirl, and may love my Solarian wife, Helen. Even if I trusted you completely, I could not love you at this time."
"I understand," she flashed tightly. Either she was expert at mimicking subtly hurt feeling, or—
They had arrived at the Site. There were no Bands present. The Monsters had vacated the moon too recently. "This looks like natural landscape, and the magnetic patterns are not like those of ordinary machines," Rondl explained. "But this is the Ancient Site, where the Bands first mastered the technology of artificial magnetic lines and became an interstellar species."
"Without Galactic recognition," she commented. "Maybe that's the route we should have gone. Petition for Sphere status for the Bands, seeking an injunction against alien interference until the issue was decided, so their territory could not be raided. A long shot, I admit, yet—"
"The Bands have no government and no interest in Galactic status," he reminded her. "And a petition on their behalf from a non-Band, such as either of us, would not be accepted by Galactic authorities."
"But if you had trained your recruits in the mechanics of token government, instead of in token warfare—"
"True," Rondl agreed, mulling it over. He had not considered all the options. "Yet the Galactic wheels do turn slowly. Sometimes they set up committees whose wheels don't turn at all. Long before Sphere status could be granted, the Bands could be illegally extinct. The Monsters would not have honored any injunction; they would have sent in a covert party to secure the Site regardless, and if challenged would claim the raiders were outlaws."
"Yes, that is the way Monsters operate," she agreed regretfully. "Their actions are even uglier than their appearance. So now it's up to the Site. This was not the route I intended, but now I have to hope that it works. Let's pray the Site has what we need."
They entered the obscure passage to the shrine. The line wound through a series of naturalistic caverns until it looped about within a subterranean river excavation wherein stalagmites joined with stalactites above them to form ornate columns. But these formations were not completely natural; the core of each was of Ancient construction, with specially layered metals imbued with intricate magnetic patterns.
The columns were physically beautiful, in many pastel colors and designs, but it was the internal patterning that was compelling. Rondl and Tangt, as Bands, could detect what the Monster sensors had missed: the exquisitely intricate artifice of each individual column, and a suggestion of the way the larger pattern of columns interacted. This whole cave was the control unit of the larger Site—and it was almost all in operating condition. A Monster shell had interrupted a portion of it; but the Ancient device had already compensated by routing its networks around the gap, without changing anything physically. This was, apparently, that most precious of rarities in the Galaxy—an operative Ancient Site.
"I am awed," Tangt flashed. Artificial Bellatrixian illumination had been installed to facilitate flash communication. "As a Band, I can feel the splendor, though it is faint, very faint. Nothing like this exists elsewhere, I'm sure."
"The ultimate art form of magnetism," Rondl agreed. "There has never been anything to match the achievements of the Ancients."
"But why didn't the Bands draw on this to develop their powers further?" she asked plaintively. "The data are freely available to Band perception! They could have used this information to become the dominant power in this region of the Galaxy!"
"Except that the Bands are utterly anarchistic as well as pacifistic," he said. "They would never abuse power. In fact, they won't even use it. They drew on this technology to fashion lines that extended their reach to neighboring Spheres, such as Bellatrix—and no farther. They arranged only to make alien contact, not alien conquest. To facilitate the freeness of their society. That is their nature."
"That is their nature," she agreed faintly. "The very species that most deserves power, refuses to take it. And you know, now that I realize this, I wouldn't change it. The Bands are unique; they must be preserved just as they are."
"Just as they are," he repeated. "A model for all other cultures. One problem I had was that by trying to make the Bands fight to save themselves, I was trying to make them resemble Monsters. Had I succeeded, they would have lost what makes them worthwhile."
"Yet surely some compromise—if the alternative is to suffer extinction—"
"Those are the jaws of the trap. Either way, paradise is lost. Unless the potential of this Site can provide a fast, appropriate, miraculous salvation."
"You have gambled the survival of the species on this hope," Tangt said. "I hope you win."
"I hope so, too. Now let's analyze this Site. If the key is here, we need to know it before the Monsters catch on, make truce with the Bellatrixians, and resume their conquest."
"I'm not trained in electronics or magnetics," Tangt protested. "As a Band I can sense the circuitry all about us here, and revel in its artistic complexity, but I can't truly grasp it. My specialty is social engin
eering. That discipline is largely wasted on this mission."
"I can handle it." Rondl moved close to a column, letting his Solarian training integrate with his Band perception. Like a Monster using a scalpel to cut open an interesting carcass, he felt inward through the complex magnetic fields. It was like performing microsurgery on a whale. The inherent Band sensitivity to magnetism was finely attuned; no Monster perception or Monster machine could match it. This Ancient construction was a marvel of intricacy and efficiency; Rondl had never imagined such eloquence in concept or application.
The essence was here. This was not actually a "live" Site, he now realized. The better part of its active function had been lost, and he could not fathom what that might have been. Only a small fraction of its circuitry operated as intended by the constructors. But he could read the inert circuitry, much as a tourist might gaze at the ruins of the Parthenon, and be awestruck at its grandeur even in ruins. What an education this was!
It should be possible, he perceived, for Bands using amplified magnetic impulses to master a form of Mattermission. There seemed to be an inherent limit of scale here, but the Band mass was, perhaps by no coincidence, just within its upper extremity. Instead of riding the lines, the Bands could jump them, passing virtually instantaneously from one point to another within the framework. One-step travel of several light-minutes, with little energy wasted. Nothing like this existed within the scientific horizons of the Monsters; it would be hard for any Monster not in Band form to comprehend or accept it. But it was true. With this ability, Bands could avoid the Monsters entirely.
"Mattermission?" Tangt asked as he flashed her his finding. "That's true, that would help—but how long would it take the Bands to develop it?"
"No longer than twenty Solarian years; the technology is pretty clear, but there'd be some complex initial construction involved. The Bellatrixians could—"
"Anything that takes longer than twenty days won't do them much good. The Monsters will overrun the planet and wipe them out."
He had been considering the technical aspects rather than the practical ones. "You're right!" he flashed, chagrined. "And even Mattermission won't save them if the enhancement of the lines required for it comes from equipment set up here or on Planet Band. The Monsters will simply destroy the equipment. It's no answer after all."
Viscous Circle Page 28
