Lysander had suffered a whirlwind change of situation, at the time of the invasion and again when he had fled the city with Echo, the cyborg woman whose other self was a harpy. He had quit Alyc when she turned out to be a Hectare agent, and gone with Jod’e, until the Tan Adept had used his Evil Eye to make her his love slave. Lysander was a Hectare agent himself, but his necessary association with the natives enabled him to relate to their concerns. Alyc’s identity as an agent had been a distressing surprise, and he had reacted as any loyal native would, dumping her. Jod’e’s conversion had been an uglier shock; he had really come to appreciate her qualities, physical and intellectual, in their brief association. But Echo-Echo was beautiful, with her slender body and brown fluff of hair. But her body was of inanimate substance; only her brain was human. Alyc had been full human, and Jod’e android, so Echo seemed to be one more step away. But on this planet few things were quite what they seemed, and he found he could accept the emulation of life Echo represented, knowing that her loyalty to the old order was absolute. Alyc had been fully alive in body, but a traitor in mind; Echo was true in mind. He had less interest in her harpy form, except that that was the root of her loyalty lo Phaze.
She had taken him to a serf boy walking the halls. “Who is this?” he had demanded.
“Who do you think, unbeliever?” the boy had responded. Then Lysander had known it was the weird child Nepe/Flach.
Three serfs walking ahead of them had assumed the likenesses of Lysander, Echo, and the boy, for the hall monitors to track. Lysander had ducked into a side passage with Echo, and abruptly had found himself standing here under the trees where he had first encountered the harpy Oche, and handled Echo’s legs.
“We’re out of the city!” he exclaimed, amazed.
“Yes, the Unicorn Adept conjured us free,” she said.
“Where do we go from here?”
“Nowhere.”
“But I hardly know how to forage, and I have no place to sleep. I can’t be much use to anyone, here!”
The harpy appeared, perched on a low branch. “Willst share my nest w’ me?” she screeched.
Lysander tried to mask his dismay. “No affront to you, but I’m not sure I care for the elevation, even if my weight doesn’t tear your nest out of the tree.”
Echo reappeared, her nakedness glorious in comparison. One hand was on the branch, and he realized that she had made a smooth translation because she had contact with it, and could guide herself during the change. “I also have a nether bower you may find more comfortable.”
“I’m sure I would,” he agreed quickly.
She put her hand to the trunk of the tree, and pulled on the bark. The bark swung out, becoming a panel or door. Now there was a hole in the tree, just about big enough for a man to crawl through. “After you, then,” she said, gesturing to it.
“But that’s just a cavity!” he protested. “There can’t possibly be room inside it for me! The trunk is only a meter thick.”
She merely waited, her gesture in place.
Lysander shrugged. He walked to the opening, and discovered that it was the entrance to a chute leading down. Oh. He lifted a leg and put a foot in, then worked the rest of his body through, until only his head was outside. His feet now dangled in the darkness; he had no idea how deep the hole was. “Drop,” Echo said. “You will not be hurt.” Could this be some trap to put him away? But why would they bother to transport him here for that? He had to trust them, because he wanted to achieve their trust. Only when he had it could he learn the most secret details of their plan for resistance—and betray it.
He let go. He fell down—and landed in a moment in a bed of feathers. There was a sliver of light from above, that soon shut off.
Echo was coming down after him. Hastily he rolled to the side so she wouldn’t land on top of him.
He was not quite fast enough. She whomped down beside him, knocking him flat in the darkness.
“Well, now,” she said. “This is the way I like my men: laid out.” She wrapped her arms around him and squeezed close.
“But we’ve only met!” he said.
“We met months ago. Now hang on while I take your measure.”
“Measure?”
“I need to ascertain whether you are truly with us,” she said. “Jod’e was supposed to do that, but Tan took her out. I doubt you’re ready to love me on such short notice, but we only have a few days, so it will have to be the crash course.”
“I don’t think I understand.”
“The prophecy says—“
“Oh, that! But how can you be sure that refers to me?”
“We can’t. But if it does, we want you with us. We think you will be more likely to be with us if you love one of us. That’s why Jod’e had to take you from that spy.”
“You know about that?”
“The Adepts did. So they sent Jod’e to—“
“She did! But then Tan—“
“Yes. That really messed us up. They had to scratch at the last moment for another girl, and so I was recruited, because at least we’d met before. I don’t know anything about the plan to free Phaze, except that you may be vital to it, so I must bind you to it. That I shall do.”
“Now, wait! Do you think you can just pass me from woman to woman, and I’ll love any I’m near?”
“Yes. Now kiss me.”
It seemed she wasn’t joking. “Forget it! I liked Alyc, until I learned what she was. I was getting to like Jod’e a lot; if I had any time to reflect, I’d be grieving for her. But you—you’re a harpy!”
“And a cyborg. A nice match for your android body with a living brain. You know as well as I do that it is the mind that determines the person. I can make this body do anything your body desires; you won’t care that the body isn’t alive. So we’ll get started.”
“We shall not get—“
But she cut him off with her kiss. She was expert, and her body was warm and sleek and pulsing with the seemingness of vitality. Indeed it was easy to ignore the mechanics of it; in the dark she was all woman.
Then there was light, expanding from what looked like balls of cotton set against the walls. He saw her—and she was still all woman.
“Look,” he said as the kiss broke. “I did like Jod’e. I know that’s over. Tan raped her emotion and made her his. But I knew her before that, and I grieve for her loss. I would have stayed with her, perhaps married her in time; we related well. But this business of simply assuming that any woman can take me just by being assigned—doesn’t that turn the stomach of even a harpy, a little? Didn’t you have other plans for your life, before Jod’e got taken out? How can you go along with this nonsense?”
She gazed at him, her eyes spots of midnight. “Actually, I did like you, Lysander. I enjoyed flirting with you, though I never expected anything to come of it. I was between males. But that’s not the point. Our world is at stake, and any personal plans I might have had are vacant. I must love you, and you me. and hope that you are the one who will save Phaze.”
“Just like that,” he said with irony. “Phaze needs me, so you and I must fall in love. Then I’ll decide in favor of your planet, because I’ll want to stay with you the rest of my life, even though you are made of plastic.”
“You’ve got it. Meanwhile, we might as well enjoy ourselves. Let’s kiss and talk for a while, before we start on the sex.”
“I am at a loss to comprehend why you think any of this will occur. I may be of alien origin, but everything I’ve learned of your culture indicates that this isn’t the way love normally occurs.”
“There are three reasons. Are you sure you want them recited?”
“Yes.” He was intrigued. If he had to pretend to love her in order to get close to the source of the resistance, he would do that. But the role he was playing required that he offer natural resistance to such bread-and-butter romance.
“First, your body is handsome and virile and responds normally to stimuli. I am in this form an attractive woman, similarly responsive. Propinquity will normally cause us to merge, in the absence of counterindications.”
“Granted. But there are counter—“
“Second, this chamber is sealed. For the next several days, I will be your only companion, and I will be most attentive and obliging to your interests. You will find me very good company indeed—and I trust I will find you the same. Only when the love is firm will we be released.”
“So it is a trap!”
“A love trap,” she agreed. “But a willing one, for me, and I think not jus! because I love my planet.”
She evidently believed in this! “And the third reason?”
“This chamber is suffused with love elixir. It will take perhaps three days to be completely effective, and we have that amount of time available, perhaps more.”
“You really think that—“ But he broke off, remembering how Tan had changed Jod’e. Magic was operative here, and surely their love potions were effective, though slower than Adept enchantment.
“So you see, we may try to resist it, or we can go along with it. The outcome will be the same, but it will be more pleasant to go along.”
“Suppose I just break out now, before any of this can take effect?”
“I hope you don’t do that!” she said, alarmed.
“Why not? I prefer to make my own choice whom I may love.” This, again, was consistent with his established personality.
“Because if you emerge without me, my sister harpies will tear you apart. Literally. They are guarding this retreat. Please accept my word, they are mean customers, and fully capable of the act. Even if your android body is resistant to the poison of their claws, it can not withstand their massed attack. They intend to keep you in here for the full three days, and to prevent any possible rescue. Since no one else knows where you are—“
“Point made. I think I’m stuck for it.”
She sat up. “I can understand your anger, Lysander. But it will pass. I just thought that since our love is inevitable, and thereafter we may be separated, it would be nice to make the most of it in this time we have. It would be a shame to squander the interim by quarreling.”
He had one more objection. “But you are a cyborg! The love potion should not affect you.”
“I am also a harpy, and my brain is living. The potion will affect these. It is not purely chemical; it is a magical ambience that can affect even a metal robot. Indeed, I am already feeling it; that is why I am pleading for detente between us.”
Lysander shrugged. “Whether I will love you I can’t say. But your arguments are persuasive. I want to save your planet too; I just didn’t care to be cynically coerced into it.” That was a half-truth, but it would do. “My anger is fading; let’s give love a try.” That was true; it seemed that the potion was already having its effect.
“I’m glad.” She leaned into him and kissed him. “We are not always free to choose our destinies or our emotions. I think we can make a good couple, and perhaps save the planet. Then neither of us will be sorry that it wasn’t natural.”
“But how can you be sure I don’t just tell you I love you, so that you won’t sick the harpies on me?”
“Unless you are immune to magic, there is no chance of that. Jod’e would have brought you to a similar chamber.”
“Jod’e would not have needed to.”
“When the fate of our world is at stake, the Adepts do not gamble. They chose her for you, and when she was lost, they chose me. I am not as good a choice, but will have to do; there was no one else convenient. Of course Jod’e will betray you to the Hectare, and they will know about the prophecy and the love, and probably that it is me you love. But we shall try to keep you out of their tentacles, until the prophecy is fulfilled.” She paused, gazing at him. “Now you may have the pleasure of using a woman you do not yet love, if you wish, or you may wait until you do. I am amenable to your preference. I have told you all that I know about this matter.”
She was certainly being candid! “What is your own preference?”
“Oh, I was hot for you when I first met you. Harpies are lusty creatures, being chronically male-starved. I loved it when you handled my legs! But you seemed destined for other things, so I resigned myself. I’d like to discover how many times and in how many ways it can be done in three days, with one man.”
“One man?”
“The limitation is male. If I had ten men here—“
“Oh.” He considered. He appreciated both her candor and her cynicism; it relieved him of confusion and conscience. He remembered how feminine even the complete robot Sheen had seemed; Echo was interesting despite what he knew of her. “Then let’s find out.”
She addressed him with a hunger that seemed even more intense than what Alyc had shown, and in a moment they were in the throes of sex, and in another moment beyond them. Her harpy aspect must indeed be hungry for male interaction! She was evidently ready to continue, but his interest faded, so they talked instead. Her attentions to him continued during the dialogue, restoring his interest more rapidly than would otherwise have been the case.
They continued with both sex and history, in stages and bouts and alternations and mixtures, and time passed both rapidly and slowly, simultaneously. It hardly mattered what Echo said; Lysander was increasingly interested merely in listening to her, and in having her listen to him. Their sexmaking became lovemaking, the passion less, the satisfaction more. Being with her was sheer pleasure, of a sort he had not experienced before.
“It is true,” he said at last. “I have not loved before, but I do love you.”
“And I love you,” she said. “It is magical in origin, but I think I could have loved you anyway, had you had any natural interest in me. Soon we can emerge, but let’s not hurry.”
Lysander was enjoying himself, but something was bothering him increasingly. He did not want there to be a lie between the two of them. He wanted their love to be perfect, and feared it could not be.
“There is something I must tell you,” he said.
“That you now believe in love potions? I know it, Lysander.”
“That I love you too much to deceive you,” he said grimly. “I must tell you the truth, though it destroy your love for me.”
“Too late for that. Three days have passed, and I am lost. You can only hurt me, you can not destroy my love.”
The gravity of his situation suddenly tormented him. “I can lie to you only if you ask me to. I would prefer to do that, so as not to hurt you.”
She gazed at him with understanding. “There really is something bad,” she said.
“There really is. Please, tell me to lie. It will spare us both pain.”
“Does it affect our mission to save our world?”
“Yes.”
“Then you must tell me. Maybe the Adepts had this in mind.”
“Maybe they did,” he agreed, realizing that if the Adepts had known about Alyc, they might have learned about him too. In that case, it would be pointless to conceal his mission longer. It would be better to come out into the open. Maybe the love potion was distorting his judgment, but it did seem to make sense. “But can we wait a little? Love is new to me, and I want to savor it before it is dashed.”
“No, you had better tell me now. I was never one to postpone either the best or the worst.”
“I am an agent of the Hectare.”
She shook her head. “But if you were, why would you tell me? If I said one word to my sister harpies...” She trailed off, her thought evidently bothering her.
“I did not tell you, or anyone else, not even the local Hectare administrators, because it is essential that no one be able to betray my mission. It is my assignment to infiltrate to the heart of the resistance, and then destroy it, so that there is no further threat to Hectare dominance. No coercion could have made me tell. But now I have to tell you, because our love can not be true if what you know of me is false. I am not just an android with a borrowed living brain. I am an android with a Hectare brain.”
She stared. “How can it help your mission to reveal this to me?”
“It can not. Now, if you will, assume your harpy form and kill me. I will not resist you.”
“Your love makes you do this?”
“Yes.” He smiled briefly. “I see now that the Hectare, having no direct knowledge of love, did not condition me against it. But I am a Hectare, a bug-eyed monster, in human form. Kill me now, because if you do not, you are unlikely to do it later.”
“I love a Hectare?” she asked, dumbfounded.
“You love the form of a human being. I knew you for what you were when love took me; you knew only a lie about me. You are not bound. Do your planet the most good you can. Kill me.”
“But if you love me, won’t you join my side? Maybe that’s what the Adepts want.”
“If you love me, will you join the Hectare?”
“I can’t do that!” she protested. “My world is my nature! All that I am, even the metal and plastic—I can not be untrue to that!”
“You have answered yourself,” he pointed out. “I am Hectare. I must serve my species.”
“If I do not kill you, you will betray our last source of resistance to the enemy?”
“Yes. That is my mission.”
“You can’t want to do that! You would not have told me, if—“
“I don’t want to do it, any more than you want to love your home world. It is in my nature to do it. Can you love me, knowing my nature and my mission?”
“If I see you about to betray my world, I will try to stop you,” she said.
“Is that an answer?”
“I do love you, despite what you have told me. I will not tell anyone, I will only try to stop you, and die if I fail.”
“You have no call to keep my secret. You should at least tell the Adepts.”
“I think they know. It makes it certain that you are the one the prophecy means. So I must believe that I am helping my world by keeping silent.”
Lysander found himself both surprised and unsurprised. If the Adepts truly believed the prophecy, then he could indeed be the one—because of what he was. Yet it had to require a great deal of faith on her part to trust in that. “Now we know we are enemies, or that we serve opposite sides. Can we still love each other?”
She stood, gesturing him to do the same, and took his hands in hers. “I will answer, and so will you, together. Then we will know.”
“But—“
“Speak only your true feeling, as I speak mine. Are you ready?”
He nodded, not sure what she thought this was going to accomplish.
She squeezed his hands. “When I squeeze again, we’ll speak.”
Then she squeezed. “Yes,” they said together.
Something strange happened then. A ripple seemed to go out from them, causing the air to shimmer, and the walls of the cave. It was as if the color of reality shifted, though color wasn’t quite it. But he didn’t care. He drew her into him and embraced her. He didn’t care how it had come about; his love for her was real and complete.
She melted into him, as passionate as he. “So it is true,” she breathed in his ear.
“I don’t understand.”
“You saw the splash?”
“Do you mean the ripple in the air?”
“That was the splash of truth. It comes only when the emotion is true and strong, and only once for a situation. We spoke our love, and it is true, though we are in Proton form. Phaze is here too, and it manifests. I love you and you love me; there is no doubt.”
He found he had to believe. “Then stay with me, and when I do what I have to do, you do what you have to do.”
“Yes. But until then, let it be only love between us.”
He was satisfied with that.
It seemed a moment later that there was a scratching at the entrance, above. “They are opening the door,” Echo said. “I must see what they want.”
Lysander looked at his watch. “Five days have passed,” he said, startled. “It must be time for us to come out.”
She used the root-handholds to hoist herself up. He followed. Soon they were beside the tree. A harpy with a horrendous explosion of hair and feathers about her head hovered near. “Take thy paramour to the Brown Demesnes,” she screeched. “The Unicorn Adept has need o’ him.”
“Thank you, Phoebe,” Echo said.
“Ne’er thank a harpy, slut!” the creature screeched. But Lysander had the impression she was pleased.
“We’ll dress and start walking. I suppose you know how it stands between us now.”
“Aye, Oche! We spied the splash. Then we dispersed our guard.”
“I thought you would. Warn us if dragons come.”
“Aye!” The harpy flapped heavily away.
“Who was that?” Lysander asked.
“The chief hen of our Flock, Phoebe. She befriended the Robot Adept long ago, before I was hatched. She speaks for him.”
“Then we’d better go to the Brown Demesnes! I hope you know the way.”
“I do. It will be a fair walk, but we’ll be helped if we need it,” She climbed back into the tree and disappeared, going for the clothes.
Soon they were on their way, garbed in belted robes and sandals. The jungle looked wild, but Echo knew the paths. When on occasion she was uncertain, she changed to harpy form and flew high, spying out the way. The first time he had seen her in that form he had thought her ugly; now it didn’t bother him, though he preferred her cyborg form. During the whole five days of their time in the love nest, he had hardly remembered that her body was inanimate; it had seemed completely alive. That love potion had been strong stuff!
They passed an open range. On the horizon he could see animals grazing: unicorns, surely. Once a huge shape appeared in the sky; Echo drew him quickly under cover. “Dragon,” she explained. “We’ll be protected, but we don’t want to cause a commotion.”
He was in good physical condition, but Echo was indefatigable. That was the advantage of a robot body. By the day’s end he was glad to rest.
She opened a breast cabinet and brought out food for him. She was able to eat, but didn’t bother. There was no shelter here, and the chill of the night was settling in, but this turned out to be no problem. They simply removed their robes, spread them as blankets on the ground, and lay between them. Echo’s body turned warm, like a gentle stove, and drove away the chill.
“I am coming to appreciate your qualities,” he murmured, caressing her.
“Had we had more time, we could have done this before the love,” she said. “But better in reverse order than not at all.” Then she embraced him. “However, now that I mention love—“
He tried to remind himself that her body was inanimate, but it was no good. She was all the way alive for him. Evidently he was all the way human for her, similarly. Their knowledge of each other changed nothing.
He was sorry he would have to betray this wonderful dual culture. But he knew he would do it, when the occasion came.
Next day, as they continued their walk toward the southeast, a figure abruptly appeared before them. It was Flach, the Unicorn Adept. “I need him now,” he said to Echo. “I thank thee, Echo, for thy service.”
“May I not remain with him?” she asked, alarmed.
The boy smiled. “It were unkind to deny thee, considering. Make thy way alone to the Brown Demesnes and watch; an thou see a woman emerge, take human form and go with her. We shall rejoin thee in due course.”
“Thank you, Adept,” she said. Then, quickly, she kissed Lysander. As the kiss ended, she became the harpy, and flew into the foliage of the nearest great tree.
The boy faced Lysander, and his small face was disturbingly serious. “Thou has fathomed that we know thy nature,” he said. “We like thee not, Hectare, but there be none but thee to give us victory, an thou choose. An thou not cooperate completely with me, thou willst ne’er get close to our plot, so it behooves thee to make thy move not early.”
So they had indeed known! “And if you nullify me early, your prophecy will be invalidated before it has a chance,” he replied. “Even if you can’t trust your love spell to change my mind.”
“Aye. So we fathom each other. We work together, until the moment.”
“Until the moment,” Lysander agreed.
“Now will I conjure thee to the Brown Demesnes, and make thee invisible. Keep thy silence, whate’er thou dost see.”
“Agreed.” It was an interesting situation: he was an enemy agent, and they knew it, and he knew they knew, but it changed nothing. It was analogous in its way to his love with Echo: the facts simply did not affect the situation.
Flach took his hand. With his free hand he made an odd gesture.
Then they stood in a wooden room. Manlike figures of all sizes stood against the walls, immobile. That was scarcely surprising, as all of them were fashioned of wood.
Flach squeezed his hand, and became the girl, Nepe. “We have a little while,” she said. “Kiss me.”
Remembering the boy’s caution about silence, Lysander did not reply. But he obeyed the directive. He leaned down and kissed her on the mouth.
She kissed back, with surprising vigor, but hardly with the expertise Echo had. “Do I have it right?” she asked. “Squeeze my right for yes, left for no; I can’t see you.”
He glanced down at his feet, and saw only the floor. He was invisible, as promised. But what was her concern with kissing? He extended his right hand and squeezed her left upper arm.
“Try it again,” she said. But her body was melting, and in a moment there was only a knob at the top with a pair of lips.
He shrugged and kissed those lips. This time they were more competent. He squeezed her right arm.
“Good,” the mouth said, as the blob continued to change. “After I talk with Brown, I will form a sheath over your body, and it will cover your head. There will be holes for you to breathe and it will be transparent over your eyes, but if Purp tests with a kiss it better be right. Don’t jump if he pinches your ass. Just do whatever you’re told, and I will guide you with pressure on the side I want you to turn away from, or behind the legs to make you walk forward. You’ll catch on. We’ll both be hung if Purp catches on. Now stay clear and wait.”
He did that, watching her change further, until she resembled a squat wheeled robot. What was she up to?
There was a light footstep beyond the wooden door. The seeming machine made a whirring noise. The person beyond paused, then fled.
Shortly, a brown-haired woman of about forty opened the door and entered. She glanced around, then walked straight to the Nepe-machine. “Why didst thou return?” she inquired.
“Mach said you did not betray me,” Nepe replied, without the benefit of lips. “Though you did recognize me.”
“Of course I did not betray you, you darling child!” the woman exclaimed. Obviously she knew with whom she was talking.
“But Purp will make you talk,” the form that was Nepe said. “I know how.”
Lysander saw by the woman’s reaction that something significant had been said. Evidently the Brown Adept had some personal secret, and the child was playing on that. Lysander had come to appreciate how cleverly this seeming juvenile could play on a person’s secrets! Maybe it was some embarrassment of the past, or an illicit deed; whatever it was, Purp—that would be the Purple Adept, he realized—had learned it too, and would blackmail the woman. Purple was working for the Hectare, but Lysander had no more respect for him than he did for Tan, because both were traitors to their societies. The Hectare would dispose of such quislings when their usefulness was done; the termination would come without warning or reprieve or regret. The Hectare would also dispose of diehard resistance figures. But some of the intermediate individuals, who had the sense to yield without turning traitor, like Citizen Blue—these would be treated with greater respect, because they had ability and judgment and could be trusted.
From this odd dialogue Lysander learned that while he had been distracted by Echo, two more opposition Adepts had been captured. Black and Green. Only two remained, the Robot and the Unicorn. Did that mean that Clef and Tania had also been captured? The child did not mention them, which was surely significant.
Now it seemed Nepe was going to use Brown to get back at Purple in some devious way. Lysander was as mystified as Brown about this. Apparently there was to be a game played between Purple and a Hectare, and Brown was to be there, along with her servant Tsetse. Except that it wouldn’t really be Tsetse.
“As thou sayest, dear,” Brown agreed, as baffled as Lysander.
Brown was told to hide Tsetse immediately, and make ready for Purple’s visit. She left the room.
Immediately Nepe began changing form again. Her changes were not instant, the way her alternate’s were, but they were impressive. The machine became a blob, then a pool that spread across the floor like a blanket. A mouth formed in its center. “Pick me up, drape me over you,” it said. “Remove your clothes first.”
Even if he hadn’t had a mission to perform, Lysander would have cooperated just for the continuing adventure of it, he realized as he quickly removed his robe and sandals. They became visible as he set them aside, so he hid them behind a golem. The more he learned of the child Nepe/Flach, the more he appreciated how difficult she/he would be for the Hectare to capture. This was surely the chief figure of the resistance. Yet Nepe acted as if she were only a part of a much larger plot, and it was that plot Lysander had to discover.
He stooped and put his hands to the edges of the blanket. It felt like warm plastic. He lifted, and it came up as a cohesive unit, not disintegrating like jelly. He draped it over his bare shoulders, and it formed a cloak extending down to his waist.
Then the cloak animated, drawing itself close to his body. It wrapped itself about his torso, and extended down, thinning, forming a snug wetsuit. It reached his genital region and tightened about it. Oddly, his member did not react; instead it became numb. There seemed to be an anesthetic quality to Nepe’s substance, so that wherever it touched him he felt comfortable and relaxed. That was fortunate, because otherwise the notion of being so completely enclosed by a female, even a juvenile one, could have caused an awkward reaction.
The material at his shoulder humped up and formed a hood. Then it closed over his face. He was able to breathe through his nose and his mouth, but his nostrils and lips were coated with the film of flesh. He felt activity at the top and back of his head, and realized that the cap over his hair was growing hair of its own, extending down to his shoulders. Nepe was transforming his appearance!
There was a squeeze on his right arm. He looked at it, and saw that it was now visible: smooth and white, with silver-tinted nails. Then he remembered Nepe’s instructions: she put pressure on the side from which she wanted him to turn, guiding him in the manner of a horse. He turned, then walked forward as he felt guiding pressure at his backside.
At the side of the chamber a mirror hung on the wall. He went to it and looked at his reflection—and was amazed.
Not only was he visible now—he looked exactly like a beautiful woman! His hair was silvery, his eyes an echoing gray, long-lashed and large. His chest was a bosom, with extremely full and well-formed breasts. His waist was high and small, his hips wide, his legs well fleshed. There was no trace of his penis or testicles; he now had the dainty cleft of maidenhood. He was the image of a creature who, in other circumstances, he would have been glad to embrace.
Except that he was man-sized. As a woman, he was an Amazon. That would make others take unwanted notice.
His flesh-covering quivered. Then the image in the mirror fuzzed and re-formed—smaller. Nepe had done magic of some sort, and made him smaller—no, made him appear smaller, for only his reflection had diminished. That meant he would have to avoid contact with others as much as possible, to preserve the illusion.
Nepe—magic? No, that wasn’t the way it worked. She must have had a spell provided by Flach, maybe an amulet to be invoked. Amulets didn’t have to be like gems or dolls; one could be as small as a single hair, carried in her substance.
His respect for the child increased another notch. She had evidently prepared well for this mission of hers. If she was only a part of a larger plan of resistance, that plan must be formidable!
She guided him back to his original place, and to his clothing. He put on robe and sandals—and as he did so, they changed appearance and became feminine. He realized that he could have masqueraded as a woman much more simply by having his clothing changed and stuffed, but for some reason Nepe wanted him authentic through to the buff.
He stood in the center of the chamber, before the door, and waited. In a few minutes there was the sound of someone approaching, and the door opened.
Brown stood there. She stared at him, evidently astonished. It was a sentiment he could appreciate.
“Thou needs must come—“ she started, faltering as her eyes continued to travel over the apparition. Lysander realized that she had sent Tsetse away somewhere, so knew this was someone else, yet could not verify it by sight.
Now his lips felt pressure, and he knew it was time to speak. He said the most neutral thing he could think of, knowing that his voice would ruin the illusion. “Yes, of course, Brown. Whatever you say.” And was astonished again, himself. The voice he heard was not his own, but that of a woman. The illusion changed the sound, too!
The Hectare had sadly misjudged the power of magic! Lysander had not even believed in it, when he arrived, and though the Hectare in charge had surely researched it, they could hardly have appreciated its nuances. For the first time, Lysander suffered a twinge of doubt about the certainty of continuing Hectare hegemony here. Magic was a game that could change the rules of any other game!
Brown recovered. “Something has come up. I am to be Purple’s second in a game against a Hectare.”
The lip pressure came again, so again he spoke the obvious. “A game against a Hectare! But don’t they make natives—?” He broke it off deliberately, as he wasn’t sure how much Tsetse would know.
“Aye. Needs must we help Purple win. Now come.” He followed her out of the chamber and out of the castle itself. A small airplane waited there, and Citizen Purple was there, in his purple robe. “You can keep your clothing. Brown,” he said as they climbed in, “but she’s a serf.”
Now he understood why Nepe had taken the trouble to fashion a complete illusion. He wormed his way out of the robe and became the gloriously naked serf woman. Brown helped him. and he knew by her fleeting expression that when she touched his real flesh—rather, Nepe’s coating of flesh over his—she felt his real size, and knew the nature of the illusion. But of course she would protect the secret. He knew only that Nepe had to get past the Hectare guard devices to fetch something, and that Brown was helping.
The clothing resumed its original appearance as he doffed it. He wadded it up into a ball and wedged it under the seat; he should be able to pick it up on his return. If not—well, Purple probably wouldn’t pay attention to it anyway.
They flew to the city, then got a ride to a Citizen transport chamber. Citizen Purple paid no attention to Lysander; evidently he had been so completely fooled that he wasn’t challenging anything he didn’t have to. If he caught on, Nepe would be done for—and she knew she was depending on a Hectare agent for the success of her ruse. The child had phenomenal nerve!
Purple touched a button. One wall of the chamber became a video screen. It showed Purple himself challenging the particular Hectare he worked with to a game.
Hoo! As an act of foolhardiness, that could hardly be surpassed. But of course Purple hadn’t done it; he had been framed. Lysander understood now how apt Nepe was at emulations; she could have made herself resemble Purple and recorded that challenge, and had it sent to the Hectare when she was safely away.
She had a grudge against Purple; Lysander hoped she never had a grudge against him!
Purple nodded. “Flach/Nepe,” he said. “I’ve tangled with that brat before. If I don’t kill her, she’ll kill me.”
Obviously Nepe could do that, any time she chose. But she wasn’t attacking Purple, she was using him. His understandable nervousness about the high-stakes game with the Hectare was causing him to be careless, as she had anticipated, and she was pulling a stunt Purple didn’t dream of.
But it seemed that Purple had coerced Brown into putting her golems at the disposal of the Hectare invader, and to serve him personally without trying to do him direct harm. Brown had evidently agreed because Purple was blackmailing her—but also because this allowed her to help Nepe. What a devious interaction this was!
They proceeded to the Game Annex, where the Hectare and its second waited. Its second was Tan. That gave Lysander a momentary start, but he realized that it made sense; the Hectare were playing the game by local rules, and needed competent local advice. So the two quislings were on opposite sides in this matter, but united in their support for the invader. Another interesting situation!
The game proceeded. The irrepressible Game Computer discarded their grid choices, as was its wont, and assigned them a competitive play set in ancient Crete, of planet Earth’s history. The chamber assumed the likeness of the old stone palace.
Too bad he had been unable to obtain access to the game source code. He could have found out why it aborted the regular grid, and corrected the malfunction. But now that he knew that the Adepts had known his nature, he understood why Blue had given him make-work instead of real work. That malfunction must relate in some way to the Adepts’ plotting.
The Hectare selected an actress by picking her up and carrying her away. She was a robot, but she screamed protest and kicked her feet, seeming exactly like a ravished maiden. Lysander thought of Echo, and could believe it. The robots of this planet were extremely sophisticated, emulating human beings almost perfectly.
He would have liked to watch the game, but his lips and legs felt Nepe’s pressure. That meant she had somewhere else to go, and he would have to make an excuse. “I don’t care to watch this,” he said in Tsetse’s dulcet voice, and backed away. Brown saw her, and did not protest. No one cared about a serf servant when there was more interesting business afoot. In a moment he was out of the chamber and on his own.
Nepe had achieved the first pan of her plan: she had gotten them past the Hectare alerts, that would have stopped them had they not been an authorized part of Purple’s party. But what was next?
Guided by her pressure on his legs and backside, he walked down the hall, not to the concourse, but to a service area. When there was no one to observe, he ducked into the machine passages, and caught a rubbish cart to the Hectare district. Nepe was playing a dangerous game!
They came to a particular apartment. Suddenly Lysander realized whose it must be: the Hectare who was playing the game with Purple! Not only was Nepe using Lysander to assume grown human form, and using Purple to get past the alerts, she was raiding the Hectare’s den itself, while the game kept it occupied.
They came to a service access panel. Now there was pressure on his hands and on his back: she wanted him to go forward through the panel. But of course he couldn’t do that; it was closed, and any attempt by an unauthorized party to force it open would set off a strident alarm. In fact, entry by the wrong party would do the same, even if no force was used. Only the Hectare code would do, here. Which meant that Nepe knew about that, too. The Adepts had done a real job of investigation on him!
Very well. He had to cooperate if he was to get to the root of their plot, even if he facilitated that plot along the way. Nepe’s nervy plot had him in thrall too. If he didn’t do it, they would find someone else to, or some other way; he knew that the Hectare had seriously underestimated the cunning of the resistance. Which was, of course, why agents like him were assigned. He represented the backup, to make sure that there were no devastating surprises. He had already learned enough to justify that policy.
He tapped in the code pattern. The panel slid open. He stepped into the apartment, setting off no alarm.
Nepe guided him to an antechamber, where a special unit sat on a table. She made him use the Hectare code to open it. Inside, carefully aerated and protected from all shocks of motion or temperature, lay a set of small, intertwined tentacles.
Lysander stared. Oh, no! Only now did he appreciate the full daring of Nepe’s mission. This was a Hectare seed!
Lysander’s brain had been taken from a living Hectare whose body had suffered irreparable damage. His memories of his prior life had been eliminated, but his knowledge of Hectare custom and culture had remained, so that he would never lose his fundamental identity. He knew the significance of this seed, and knew that Nepe knew it too. The Adepts must have done meticulous research, and acquainted her with exactly what she needed to know.
Human beings reproduced in the fashion of their mammalian kind: the male, when amorously inclined, used his organ of intromission to insert a number—a considerable number—of viable seeds in the receptive chamber of the female. The species was so organized that there was continual interest in this activity, so that such insertions were made even when there was no reasonable prospect for viability. This was what he had done with Alyc, and thought to do with Jod’e, and had done most recently with Echo. He knew that his android body did not produce viable seed; it would never merge with the female seed and form a new living entity. Only with the help of laboratory enhancement could an android produce offspring. Female androids generally served as brood mares for the embryos of living human women who preferred not to interrupt their social schedules by being gravid. Humanoid robot females could do the same, to a lesser extent. How magic affected this he wasn’t sure; strange things were happening on the planet, and perhaps strange crossbreeds were occurring. Nepe herself was an example.
Hectare reproduced differently. They were of one sex, but did pair off to breed. Under their mantle of tentacles, normally concealed from exterior view, were their appendages, which were small and immobile tentacles. Periodically one of these would ripen, at which time the Hectare would seek a compatible Hectare with a similarly ripened member. The two would approach each other and if the compatibility persisted, engage in what the human kind would term a sexual encounter. Their two ripe tentacles would twine around each other, and in the ecstasy of the experience, the Hectare would separate and break off the members. The interlocked tentacles, each containing the chromosomal complement of the parent, represented the nucleus of a new Hectare.
But the course of development was not automatic. The Hectare seed had to be planted in the soil of the home planet, the only place where it would grow. It could survive in stasis for a time, originally brief but with the aid of modern technology up to a year, if the proper environment was maintained. That was the purpose of the housing unit: it provided the environment of stasis, so that the seed could be shipped to the home planet for planting. Hectare did not have families; all seeds were treated equivalently in the protected nursery. They sent out roots to gather nutrients, and drew energy from the sun. They also developed their mantles of tentacles to catch insects and other prey, and their eye complexes, that gave them their beauty. In time they achieved the mass and resources to enable them to become mobile. As they did so, they were captured by the nursery caretakers and brought to special chambers for education. In due course they would emerge as adult Hectare, ready to participate in Hectare civilization, and to help extend it to other planets.
What did the human resistance want with a Hectare seed?
The covering of flesh that made him resemble the woman Tsetse rippled and changed. Nepe’s main mass was overlaid at his chest and hips; this now drew the thinner sections into itself, forming a single mass at the region of his stomach. As it slid away from his legs and arms he saw nothing: he remained magically invisible, even to himself.
A mouth formed in the bloated belly he now carried. “Lift me to the seed, then carry me away from here swiftly.”
Lysander did not like this at all. He was after all Hectare himself, despite the human body and human attributes he had assumed. How far did his mission require him to go? To interfere with a Hectare seed would be to provoke a ferment that could bring about extraordinary mischief.
But if he did not, Nepe would probably turn him in, and his chance to fathom the Adept plot would be gone. She was putting him to the test, and there would be no evasion.
He made his decision. Better to sacrifice one Hectare seed than the mission, because the mission could affect the Hectare dominance of this planet. What was one seed, which might not survive, compared to the planet, which was important in its small fashion to the alliance dominance of the galaxy?
He put his hands on the ball of flesh that was Nepe and heaved it up and over the unit. She weighed about half as much as a grown man, and probably never would get beyond three-quarters man-weight, but what a creature she already was! The Hectare, if they but could know it, should be thankful that there was only one of her on the planet. As it was, even that one might be more than they could handle. Two would swamp them!
A pseudopod extended from the mass, depending toward the seed. It touched the seed, and enfolded it, and then retracted, carrying the seed. In a moment he held the ball again, with the Hectare seed hidden inside it.
He moved the glob to the side and down; his arms were tiring. He didn’t know whether Nepe wanted to clothe him again, or do something else, and hesitated to inquire. There was probably an aural monitor that would set off an alarm at the sound of his voice. Nepe had spoken, but she might know of the monitor and how to avoid triggering it. She seemed to know everything else, including exactly how to use him to achieve her mission.
There was pressure on one side of his hands, from protoplasm that wrapped around them, so he carried her that way. It was toward the service access panel they had used to enter. He put a foot through, then carefully shifted to bring Nepe through. But the extra weight was awkward, and his shoulder brushed the edge of the opening.
Immediately an alarm sounded. A device in the ceiling spun about, searching for the intrusion; the moment it spotted him, a laser beam or worse would strike. They were in for it now!
Lysander jammed his body through the hole and shoved to the side, to get out of the line of fire. But there wasn’t room for them both; Nepe would get tagged. So he heaved her into the darkness beyond like a big bowling ball, rolling her out of danger. Then he tapped the Hectare “At Ease” code on the wall.
The alarm silenced. The Hectare codes overrode all else. But the brief sounding of the alarm would alert the Hectare security force, and there would be a prompt investigation. He had to get far away from here in a hurry!
He closed the access, so that their mode of exit would not be immediately apparent, and let his eyes adjust to the darkness. He knew there was very little time to waste.
Where was Nepe? She had disappeared, and he just had to trust that she would know how to manage; he would only get them both caught if he searched for her.
He would probably get caught anyway! He heard a machine coming his way, and there was nowhere to scramble out of its way. He huddled against the dark metal wall, waiting for whatever offered.
It was a delivery wagon, self-propelled and empty. It evidently did double duty as a cleanup unit, sent automatically when the alarm went off. It came to the dead-end that was Lysander’s niche, and flashed a beam directly on him.
And through him! The magic still made him invisible, and the machine didn’t see him! It spun around and rolled away. He had assumed that the effect was limited to the perception of living creatures. He had underestimated it again.
How far did this magic extend? His shoulder had set off the alarm, and Brown had felt his real body (as covered by Nepe), so obviously touch was not included. Nepe had told him not to speak, so sound probably was not included either. But could he walk with impunity among the machines, as long as he did not touch them? It was worth trying.
He walked, and the machines ignored him. He made his way down the dark passage, walking between the tracks of the delivery system. It was working!
Then he heard a larger machine coming—and there was no room to get out of the way. If it did not see him, it would run him down. He turned and sprinted for the last alcove, but the machine was too fast; he knew it would overhaul him first.
Then it slowed, and he made it to the alcove and swung himself out of the way. The machine moved past, picking up speed, and in a moment was gone.
Lysander had to pause to think about that. There had been no reason for the machine to slow; it was a level track, and it had the programmed right-of-way. No reason to slow—except to avoid hitting Lysander.
The machine had known he was there, yet given no other indication. What did that mean?
Nepe’s father Mach was a self-willed machine. He must have given a directive, that the machines obeyed. To ignore Lysander as if they did not see him, but not to hurt him. So that he could complete his mission for the Adepts. The magic did not after all affect the machines, but their orders did.
He felt a shiver. He was sure the Hectare did not know about this. How much else was going on under their noses? If a machine could be instructed to ignore a spy, why couldn’t it be instructed to assassinate a Hectare leader?
He was right to pursue his mission, even though it facilitated the opposition. He had to get down to the fundamental ploy of the resistance. The Adepts might let him do that, because they believed they could not win without his help. He was now less certain about that than they were. This planet was deviously dangerous.
He made his way to an exit panel near the concourse. He would have to get out, trusting his spell of invisibility to humans and avoidance by machines to protect him, and try to find Nepe. She still needed his help, for she could not masquerade as Tsetse alone.
He opened the panel and stepped out. He took one step—and a serf blundered into him. Lysander had done the most elementarily foolish thing: he had assumed that other people would automatically avoid collisions. But they couldn’t, because Lysander was invisible to them. They were not machines.
“Hey, there’s a man here!” the serf exclaimed, groping as he caught his balance. “I can’t see him!”
Citizen Tan’s voice came over the speaker system. “Hold him! We want him!”
Lysander brought up his hand and pinched the man’s neck, making him gasp with pain and let go. But half a dozen others were now closing in. These were serfs who had volunteered to serve in the new order; they wore the identifying arm bands with tentacle pattern that denoted lesser collaborators. They spread their arms, to prevent anyone unseen from passing by them, and more were converging from beyond. Lysander knew he would not be able to fight his way clear of this. All because of his completely stupid mistake!
Then another serf lurched toward him. Lysander got one look at the man’s face—before it vanished. The man had turned invisible!
“Duck down, crawl away,” a voice beside him said. “Nepe’s waiting next intersection. I’ll distract them.”
Lysander didn’t question it. He ducked down just as the first serf of the closing ring made contact. The man might have fell his touch, but immediately contacted the other invisible man and grabbed on to him. “I’ve got him! I’ve got him!” he yelled— before his breath whooshed out from what must have been a blow to the solar plexus.
Lysander slid around and between legs, and got clear as the melee proceeded. Who was the other man? He had never seen him before. Yet obviously the man had not only seen Lysander, he had recognized him—and known his mission with Nepe.
He hurried down to the next intersection, getting well clear of the action behind. He skirted a standing guidebot, but felt a thread extending from it. He paused, then touched it with a finger.
It was warm and alive. It was Nepe in disguise.
Now the machine moved, evidently called for duty somewhere else. Lysander followed. They entered the side hall and got out of sight of the pedestrians. Then they ducked into an empty food alcove.
Nepe was already flattening. Lysander heaved her up and draped her thinning body over his shoulders. He stood nervously while she spread out across his body, making it visible; the process was not instantaneous, and if someone came right now—
No one came. Nepe completed the transformation. He did not need to look in any mirror; he saw the breasts and hips. He was a visible woman again.
Guided by her, he walked onto the concourse. There was Brown, looking about. They approached her. There was pressure at his lips. “I’m sorry,” he said in Tsetse’s voice. “I didn’t know your game was through.”
“It’s all right, Tsetse,” Brown said. “We have passes to leave. My golems will carry us back to the castle.”
She showed the way to a public exit, where they stood and waited for half an hour. Then a horse appeared, running toward the city. It was a wooden horse—a golem—with a wooden carriage behind.
They boarded the carriage, and the horse set off for home. “Citizen Purple won his game,” Brown said. “I was able to assist him, and I think he was pleased. I must say he has treated me better than I expected.”
“I’m glad,” Lysander said. He did not feel free to say anything else; Purple might have this carriage under observation, as a routine precaution.
They drew up to the Brown Demesnes. “I thank thee for thy company, Tsetse,” Brown said, reverting to her Phaze self. “I will need thee not again this day; do as thou willst.”
“Thank you, Brown,” Lysander said carefully. She knew that her companion was not the real Tsetse, but did she know who it really was?
They entered the castle. Brown went to her room, probably to lie down; she had had a wearing session, he was sure. Nepe guided him to the golem storage room.
There she drew away from him, and formed her natural self, the naked girl. “We can talk now, Lysander,” she said. “This castle is secure, when Purp’s not here. I just wanted you to get rehearsed for your role, before. You did well.”
“Thank you. But what happened to the Hectare seed? You didn’t lose it, after all that?”
She patted her abdomen. “No, I have it in here. I never thought I’d be pregnant at age nine!”
She was a Moebite, of course, able to assume any form; she could as readily carry an object inside her in human form as when she was in ball form or machine form. This allowed her to function normally while maintaining a suitable environment for the seed, so as not to let it die. Still, her remark surprised him. He had absorbed enough of human culture to know that human children did not procreate any more than immature Hectare did. “Glad I could be of help, getting you pregnant,” he said dryly.
“You aren’t finished. We have to take the Hec seed to the West Pole.”
“That’s where your center of operations is?”
“You don’t think I’ll tell you,” she accused him mischievously. “But I will. The answer is, I don’t know where our setup is, and neither does anybody else. All I know is that I have to get a Hec seed to the West Pole, and then I’ll see what else I have to do.”
“So if I want to find out, I’ll have to keep helping you.”
“Right. We’re making you fulfill the prophecy, even if you don’t like it. But you’ll get a choice somewhere, I think, if you stay with it.”
“You play a nervy game!”
“I’ve had experience. I can’t save the planet alone, so I’m recruiting whatever I need. You helped a lot, especially with the Hec code to null the alarm. Now we can relax, until Tsetse comes back. Then a long walk, so you better rest.”
“Why not change to Flach and conjure us there?”
“Two reasons. First, he couldn’t carry the seed like this, so it has to be me. Second, Purp’s got magic warners out, to spy on any Adept-level magic in Phaze. So the small stuff, like invisibility, is about all that’ll pass. So I have to hoof it, and I can’t make it by myself in time, so I need you and Echo to help.”
“Echo’s coming with us?” he asked, his human heart coming alive. The pressure and oddity of events had distracted him, but now he missed her intensely.
“You bet. We make it nice for you, so you’ll think about joining our side. Same way as Purp makes it nice for Brown. So he’s got her working for him, and I’ve got you working for me.”
“But Brown is still helping you against the Hectare, and I’m still working for the Hectare.”
“Yep. You can’t get full use out of an enemy. But you do what you can.”
“Who was that man who took my place, so I could get away from the serfs? He turned invisible?”
“That was Bane. My father, aka the Robot Adept.”
“Oh! He distracted them, then conjured himself clear!”
“No. After Flach conjured you and Echo out, Purp got wise and set up a magic barricade against conjuration and transformation in the dome. That’s why Flach couldn’t just conjure himself in to steal the Hec seed; I had to do it. He could’ve overridden Purp’s magic, but it would have made a splash, and alerted the Hecs. Tan’s got splash-watch, I think. He’s been having a lot of fun with Jod’e, but he watches the warners all the time. So we had to do it the hard way. Good thing it worked.”
Jod’e—that still hurt, though now he had other love. “You mean your father let himself be captured—to help me escape?” Lysander asked, astonished. “Knowing that I’m an enemy agent?”
“He did that. Just as Green and Black gave themselves up to spring Flach. We need you, ‘Sander.”
“You have more faith in your prophecy than I do!”
“We know magic better than you do. Now eat something, if you need it; there’s some food in a chest in the comer. And sleep; you can dream of Echo. One good night is all we have before it gets rough.”
At this point, he believed it.
Nepe knew it was silly, but she rather liked Lysander. He was an android with a Hectare brain, a spy for the other side, but that was balanced out by the fact that the prophecy made him necessary to the final victory of their planet. She had watched him for alien ways, but he seemed just as human as anyone else, and more so than she herself. When he had first come to the planet he had had affectations, but these had promptly faded; he was a quick study of local custom. Now that the Yellow Adept’s love potion had made him love Echo, he was more to be trusted than before. He might think he remained independent, but he had not had occasion to test it. The moment his mission conflicted with his love, he would discover the love’s power!
Meanwhile, she had to compose herself. She wished Bane had not given himself up. Now Flach was the only Adept left free, except for Clef and Tania, who had disappeared. Only Mach had known where they went, and he had erased the memory before letting himself be captured. She had depended on her father to support her when she faltered, and now she knew she was on her own. That made her nervous.
What was at the West Pole? Flach had been surprised by the North Pole, with its slowed-down time and the two Adepts there. It would have been worse if the snow demon’s daughter hadn’t distracted him. Nepe had learned a lot from Icy; when she came to adult status and modeled her flesh, she was going to make it just like that, only warm, and fling it about similarly. The only problem was that there was really no prospective man for her. Oh, she liked ‘Corn well enough, but he wasn’t a mixedbreed like herself, and so probably wouldn’t do for the long haul.
Well, it would all come to nothing if they didn’t manage to throw off the yoke of the Hectare. For now, she just had to go one step at a time, and get the three messages taken care off. Flach had gone to the North Pole; now she was taking the Hec seed to the West Pole. Both of these missions had proved to be more complicated than they seemed. She hoped the third one would not prove to be more of a challenge than she could handle. She knew that the fate of the planet hung on her success, and she was nervous about that.
She settled into a puddle and slept.
Next morning the golem party and Tsetse arrived with the wood. Nepe hustled Lysander out; he remained invisible, but of course she could tell where he was, because Flach had made the spell. They slipped out to join the party and take Echo away; Tsetse would enter the castle alone, where she and Brown would sort things out in their own fashion.
Now they were three: Nepe, Lysander, and Echo. While the other two embraced ardently (though it looked as if the woman were pantomiming, because of the man’s invisibility), Nepe changed slowly to wolf form. An observer would have found it a strange scene: a child becoming an animal, and a cyborg woman embracing air. But Nepe wanted no observer, because Purple was alert, and must not catch on to this secret mission. She wished there had been some way to recover Lysander’s clothes from Purple’s plane, to eliminate any trace of what was going on. But it just wasn’t possible to catch every detail.
She carried the Hectare seed inside her. She had joked about it, to Lysander, but privately it revolted her; she liked nothing about the Hectare, physically or mentally. They were true bug-eyed monsters, and they were out to despoil the planet and leave it deprived of its resources, especially its magic. All so they could use the Protonite to power their machines, and the wood for their construction, and the flesh of the animals for their larders, and the magic for whatever devices they could work out. They were still consolidating their conquest, but soon the serious ravaging would proceed, and then nothing would stop it. They had left a trail of lemon-squeezed planets behind; they were very efficient at what they called investment and reduction.
Yet Grandpa Blue had explained to her at the outset that the Hectare were only part of the problem. There were dozens of conquerer species out there, forming their galactic alliance, and any of them could have conquered Proton. The Hectare just happened to be the species the lot had fallen on. If they failed, another species would be allowed to try, because the alliance wanted the resources of this exceptional planet put to good use by its definition. Proton had been a low priority acquisition, before the mergence, because the magic was out of reach. But when it became apparent that magic was present and genuine, the priorities abruptly shifted. So if Proton, and especially Phaze, were to be saved, they had to forge a defense that would be effective against all invasions. That was a mighty tall order.
The truth was that Proton’s presence in the alien sector of the galaxy made little difference, overall. The human sector was just as bad, for human beings were the greatest exploiters of all. The humans were taking over alien planets in their sector for similar reduction. Once they had squeezed them dry, they would start on the lesser alien planets—just as the aliens would start on the lesser alien planets once the easy pickings were done. The Hectare themselves might in due course be reduced to servant status by some more powerful alien species. It was the predatory chain, unceasing in its hunger for power.
“And so,” Grandpa Blue had told her, “we must be either the eaters or the eaten. We can no longer drift in our isolation. If we do not set out to rule the galaxy, we must suffer the exploitation of those who do. Since we lack either the power or the desire to become galactic, our fate is sealed. Unless we find that perfect defense.”
“Then we must find it,” she had said.
“Unfortunately, it doesn’t exist. At least, there is no mechanism to make it feasible. Conquest seems unavoidable.”
“But we can’t just give up!”
“Hardly that, Nepe! Fortunately there is a prophecy that guides us and suggests that we can craft our mechanism, in time.”
“How much time, Grandpa?”
“About seventeen years,” he said.
She stared at him. “But it only takes the Hectare two years to denude a planet! If we don’t get rid of them within two months, we’ll suffer awful harm!”
“True. But the prophecy indicates that we shall need the help of the enemy to succeed. So we shall have to let them get started, and then see what we can do.”
“Grandpa, I think there’s something you’re not telling me!”
“Whatever gave you that notion, cutie?”
Then she was sure. “But when the time comes—“
“Then you will know as much as you need.”
Now, remembering, Nepe still did not know the plan. It seemed impossible to forge a seventeen-year weapon in two months. But she believed in Grandpa Blue, who was also the Adept Stile, and in the others who supported him. More recently she had seen how even the Green and Black Adepts, former enemies, supported him too, even to the extent of giving up their freedom to help Flach get away. They could have saved themselves, but hadn’t even tried, preferring instead to distract the enemy. Then Bane himself had done the same to protect the spy Lysander, just so he would be able to fulfill the prophecy—if he chose. So she was protecting Lysander too, and also doing this other awful thing, carrying the Hectare seed to the West Pole. They had discovered how the North Pole related, because of the Magic Bomb—but how could the West Pole relate? Well, soon she would find out, she hoped.
Now she was in wolf form, and Lysander and Echo had finished their first passionate reunion, after a separation of a whole day. Nepe was jealous; she hoped some day to love like that. Of course it was because of the Yellow Adept’s potion, but it was genuine; the potion merely enhanced what nature would have done in time. Their love was true, whatever else was artificial.
“We must travel,” Nepe told them. “But we need more. You two hide while I go summon the others.”
Echo stared. Then she understood. “You aren’t really a wolf, so you can make your wolf-mouth talk human speech.”
“Yes. Don’t let Purp or the golems catch you.” Then Nepe loped away. She knew that the two would find something to do while they waited, and would hardly miss her. It didn’t matter that Lysander was invisible; Echo could feel him, and he could feel her. She would merely close her eyes.
Kurrelgyre’s wolf village was not far away. Nepe was familiar with the region, because Flach’s mind was with her. Flach had been content to tune out the past two days, lost in the bliss of foolish fond imaginings relating to snow demonesses. But that was wearing off now, as reality seeped in; Icy was not for him, for about three excellent reasons: age, species, and mission. The last was the most important; if he did not help save Phaze, none of the snow demons would survive.
Right, he agreed, her thought clarifying his sentiment. Bear left.
She bore left. He knew every bypath here, while she knew only the approximate routes. It would have been easier to give him the body, but both the Hectare seed she carried and the danger of Purple’s snooping on their magic ruled that out. Maybe when they got farther into the hinterland, on the way to the West Pole, it would be safe to transform. So she jogged on, though her emulation of a wolf was not nearly as good as his. She was an amoeba assuming the form, whereas he could change into a real wolf, capable of all the lupine things, including (in due course) reproduction.
Maybe Sirel’s approaching her time! he thought.
But Sirelmoba, his Promised, was only nine years old, the same as he was. It should be two years yet before her first season. Still, it was better for him to be thinking of her than of Icy, for Sirel would be coming with them to the Pole.
Yes, he agreed, brightening.
They reached the werewolf village. Well before Nepe entered it, the guard wolves were pacing her. But they knew her, and knew why she was here. In a moment Sirelmoba appeared, formally sniffing noses and tails, and politely concealing her distaste for the alien odor. No mock-wolf could deceive a true one!
“And three more,” Nepe said using human speech because she could not use the wolves’ growl-talk effectively.
Old Kurrelgyre assumed human form. “Runners are going for them. They will join thee on the way.”
“But we shall be hiding!” she protested.
“No one hides from wolf or bat at night. He will find thee, and will alert the mares when they draw nigh.”
He will, Flach assured her.
“If you will cover our trail—“
“Done,” Kurrelgyre said. “And good fortune to thee, little bitch.”
“Thank you.” She appreciated the sentiment; it was a compliment to be called a bitch by a true werewolf.
She turned to go, the young werebitch beside her. The others of the Pack faded to the sides. They would cross and recross the trail, obliterating it, so that no one would be able to trace the route of the two by sight or odor. They would also serve as an early guard, so that nothing would get through to attack the small party while it remained in the local Wolf Demesnes. They would be unobtrusive about it, so that there was no commotion. They did not know the details of her mission any more than she did, but were well aware of its importance.
Sirel and Nepe ran silently. The bitch held her pace back, because Nepe could not match it. Even so, Nepe was getting tired; she would have done better in human form, because she had had a great deal more practice in it, though it was no more natural to her than wolf form.
They reached the place where she had left the ardent couple. Sirel knew it well before Nepe did; her keen nose picked up the foreign scents. “They be not standing guard,” she said in growl-talk.
Nepe could understand the growls better than she could make them. “Love potion,” she explained.
“Aye, and strong!”
They made just a bit of noise approaching, so that the couple could disengage. Nepe suspected this would be a problem as they traveled; instead of sleeping at night, the two would be wasting their energies in amour. But it couldn’t be helped; it was part of the price of the mission.
Sirel blinked as they came in sight of the couple. Her nose made it plain that the man was there, but her eyes couldn’t find it. “Flach made him invisible,” Nepe explained.
“Should have made him unsmellable,” Sirel growled.
“This is the werebitch Sirelmoba,” Nepe said, introducing her to the couple. “And the android Lysander, and cyborg Echo,” for Sirel’s benefit. “We must travel together.”
Sirel growled assent, not wholly pleased. She would rather have traveled alone with Nepe—or better yet, with Flach. But she knew that the preference of any of them had little to do with it.
“We go to the West Pole,” Nepe said. “We have three days to make it, and we must all get there. If Citizen/Adept Purple catches on, he will try to stop us, and we will have to scatter and rejoin later, but we must keep moving. Sirel and Echo can sustain the pace, but Lysander and I can not, so we will have help. There will be one more member of our party who will not have a problem traveling.” But she realized that there could be a different problem there. She hoped they would be too busy traveling for that to manifest.
“The West Pole!” Sirel said, assuming her girl form, which was much like Nepe’s human form except that her hair was always dark. Nepe’s hair was whatever color she chose when she assumed the form; she had recently worn it neutral brown, and just long enough to cover her ears, so that she did not have to bother to form ears. “But there be naught there!”
“Maybe there will be something by the time we get there,” Nepe said, hoping that was the case.
“Well, there is still a portion of the day left,” Echo said. “Why don’t you folk start walking, and I will spy out the terrain ahead.”
“Thank you,” Nepe said.
“I’ll go with you,” Lysander’s voice came.
“I think not, handsome man!” Oche the harpy screeched, flapping up into the sky.
“Point made,” he agreed ruefully.
“I will range out the same on land,” Sirel said. “Not all can be seen from above.” She slid into the bush, disappearing in a moment.
Nepe started walking, trying not to limp; her temporary muscle structure was becoming uncomfortable.
“But Nepe, why can’t you assume some form that will enable you to travel more readily?” Lysander asked her.
“All my forms are unnatural,” she replied. “I would get tired in any, and waste time and energy changing between them.”
“But as Flach—“
“The others can change forms without trouble, as many times as they wish,” she explained, “because those forms are inherent in their natures. The werewolves are descendants of men and wolves, and the harpies have vulture and human ancestry. There is no significant magic splash when they change. But when Flach changes forms, other than his natural ones of unicorn and boy and maybe wolf, he has to use a new spell each time, and the splash is detectable throughout Phaze. Purple is watching for it, and would be here in a moment. So Flach has to be very limited in his magic. That, along with the problem of carrying the Hec seed—“
“I understand. You have amazing abilities in either aspect, but you have limits too. You are surprisingly candid about them.’
“If Purp closes in on us, you’ll have to help me get away, or you won’t learn what we’re up to.”
“Yet if you are the only one who knows how to implement the resistance ploy, then if you are stopped, it may be stopped too.”
“Unless I am the only one I know of who can implement it,” she said. “If there are others I don’t know about, you will never have a chance to stop them, unless you help me get together with them according to the plan.”
“True.” He believed that she was the only one, but it could have been set up to give him that impression so that he would stop looking. Even the story of the prophecy could have been concocted to deceive him. It wasn’t safe to stop yet. “So I must continue to support the enemy, until the full nature of the resistance is known.”
“Meanwhile, you can love Echo,” she said. “And maybe by the time you know the whole thing, you won’t want to mess it up.”
“Maybe by then she will understand that I have to do what I have to do, and will join me in it.”
“And maybe even if she does, when the Hec ravage the planet the magic will go, and Oche will die, and then Echo will be nothing but a machine with a dead brain.”
It sounded as if someone had struck him in the gut. He stopped moving, and evidently leaned against a tree.
“I’m sorry, ‘Sander,” she said. “That was a mean thing to say.”
“You scored, Nepe.” He sounded out of breath. “I think I didn’t really believe the power of that potion! I do love her, and I couldn’t let that happen to her.”
“Maybe they’ll let you save a bit of Phazite for her, so she can be all right. It’s a chip of Protonite that runs her robot body, and that’s the same stuff. If you keep enough of that—“
“Why are you telling me this?” he asked, managing to resume his walking. “It’s not in your interest to do so.”
“Grandpa Blue taught me you can’t win a chess game by cheating. You can hide your strategy, but you have to tell your opponent when you put his king in check, and his queen too, if you want to be sure. We gave you a queen, and she’s in check.”
“That you did, and that she is,” he agreed.
“But it’s our whole world in check.”
“I appreciate your position.”
“If you had it to do over, would you go with Echo and take the potion?”
“I didn’t know about the potion until I was locked in with it.”
“But you didn’t really believe in it, so you didn’t try to escape. But now you know it works—if you could go back and avoid it—“
He walked for a while, pondering. “Alyc was just a diversion; she and I both knew that. Jod’e could have been real; I’m still sorry about the way Tan got her. I would change that if I could! Echo was nobody special. I just went with her because she had a way out, never expecting to love her. But now I have had the experience of loving her, and that is something I would not change. Before I had only my mission; now I have my mission and love, and that has made a dimension in my life that was not there before. So if I had known the whole of it, I would have proceeded exactly as I did. Love is too valuable to bypass.”
“I wasn’t teasing you,” Nepe said. “I just wanted to know. I like a lot of people, and I love my folks, especially Grandpa Blue, but I’ve never had romantic love. I figure if it’s not worth it, now is when you’ll know.”
“It’s worth it,” he said. “But I still have my mission. If you fell in love, you would still have yours.”
They walked on. Nepe thought about her relation with Troubot, and Flach’s with Troubot’s other self, Sirelmoba, and knew that these were friendships, not romantic love. She flirted with Alien or ‘Corn, but again, she knew this was a far cry from the kind of commitment she had seen in adults. The fact was that there was no person or creature of her generation that was like her: part alien, part human, and on Flach’s side, part unicorn and part machine. Or maybe he had the human lineage and she the machine; it was a matter of definition, since their fathers had used each other’s bodies. She was also a male/female mergence, which was fine for association with Sirelmoba/Troubot, but not with anyone else. Thus she was a complex creature, and in her fashion unique to the planet; no one else had her variety of affinities or abilities. If she could meet another like her, only different—
But how could she? It would require strenuous effort to make another like her, which was impossible in the face of the Hec conquest, and even then the result would be at least ten years younger than she. So she was alone in her special fashion.
“Why do I have the feeling that despite all your talents,” Lysander asked, “you have an emptiness like that of mine before love?”
“Because you know I’m one of a kind!” she snapped. “IT never have true love!”
“You don’t need another like you for love,” he protested “All you need is a suitable companion, and a love potion. I happen to know.”
She laughed, feeling better. Maybe he was right.
The harpy returned. She flapped clumsily down until close to the ground, then manifested as Echo. “Which side do the goblins serve now?”
“Ours,” Nepe said. “All the creatures are with us, because they’ll all die if Phaze is despoiled. But if they don’t know the importance of my mission, they may figure it’s business as usual.”
“Then we had better steer around the goblin camp to our west,” Echo said.
They steered around, cutting north. But as they followed a path beside a streamlet, they heard a commotion ahead. There was a crash and a yipe, as of an animal getting snared.
“Sirel!” Nepe exclaimed, as Flach recognized the sound. “She’s in trouble!”
They charged forward, and soon were there. Sure enough, the werewolf was caught in a raised net, that had evidently been set to spring up around anyone who stepped where it was hidden across the trail. This was goblin mischief!
The net had formed a bag, that gave Sirel no purchase for escape. It closed into a rope above, that passed over a fork in a medium small tree and back down to the ground. The tree had been tied down, and when released had carried up the net, closing it about the prey. It was a clever enough device, the kind that goblins had been proficient at for centuries. All that was required for release was to untie the knot at ground level.
But the goblins were as fast as their party had been. Five of the tough little creatures charged up from the opposite extension of the path. “Dinner!” one cried exultantly. “Bitch stew!”
“Keep quiet, ‘Sander,” Nepe warned. “Echo, you talk.” She hoped they understood: the goblins must not learn the full nature of this party.
“No you don’t!” Echo cried. “That’s my wolf!”
The squat goblin chief paused, looking at her. “Thy wolf be at thy side,” he said.
“Both be mine. Cut the bitch loose, or we shall have a reckoning.”
The four other goblins began to move forward, hefting their knobby clubs. “Methinks we shall eat e’en better than we thought,” the chief said.
“I will use my talent to hurt you,” Echo threatened.
“Ye be Protonite,” the chief replied. “No magic.” Meanwhile, the four were coming close.
Echo pointed at the chief’s head. “Hurt!” she cried.
Something struck the big head. The goblin blinked, but seemed surprised rather than hurt. He brought his club around.
“Hurt!” Echo repeated, pointing to his feet.
Something crunched down on the chief’s big toes. This time he reacted more vehemently. “Ooooff!” He danced on one foot, holding the other.
Now Nepe understood what was happening. Invisible Lysander had gotten close, and was striking the goblin at Echo’s command. First on the head, which was relatively impervious, then stomping a foot, which wasn’t.
“Now cut down my wolf, or it will go hard with you,” Echo said.
“Listen, bitch—“ the goblin started, and since his kind had no respect for wolves, this was no compliment.
Then his eyes goggled. He squirmed a moment, as if suffering some kind of seizure. Lysander was putting some kind of hold on him.
“Let her go,” the chief wheezed.
The four, about to attack Echo, were puzzled. “But Chief—“
“I changed my mind,” the chief said, wincing. “We want bitch stew not.” He winced again. “We’ll hunt for something else.”
“Well, I want bitch stew!” one of the four said. He took a step forward.
But Nepe, standing quietly, had extended a tendril along the path, making it the same shade of brown as the forest floor. It had reached the goblin’s foot and fastened to it. When he took his step, she yanked—and he crashed down on his ugly face.
Echo strode forward herself, brushing past the three surprised goblins. One tried to swing at her, and she touched his shoulder with her hand, seemingly lightly. But there was the force and hardness of metal in that soft-looking hand, and the goblin jumped, bruised.
Echo caught the rope that supported the net. She started to untie it.
“Hey, thou canst not—“ the chief started. Then he winced again, and was silent.
Echo completed the job, and the rope separated. She clung to it, so that her weight counterbalanced the smaller weight of the wolf, and let Sirel down gently to the ground. The net fell open, and Sirel got to her feet and scrambled out.
The chief made one more effort to protest, but failed again. They walked past him and on down the path. When they were at a bend, the goblin gave an exclamation and crashed into the brush. They heard feet pounding.
“Let’s get away from here!” Nepe said. They ran, and the pounding feet ran after them, gaining. None of them wanted to be close when the goblin chief recovered his composure. He surely had not lost his taste for bitch stew.
A shape loomed ahead. It was a bat. It flew down to the path, and took the form of a boy Nepe’s age. “If I’d known thou wast having so much fun, Nepe, I’d have hurried!” he said, running with them.
“Alien!” she exclaimed. “You found us!”
“How could I miss thee? As a wolf thou be laughable!”
They slowed, satisfied that the goblins were not in close pursuit. “Echo, Sirel, ‘Sander, this is Alien, the next of our party,” Nepe gasped. “The Red Adept’s son, and”—she paused, not just for breath—“my boyfriend, when Troubot is not around.”
“We’ve met,” Sirel said. Troubot was her other self, in Proton. “But mine accounting be with Flach, an my season come.”
Nepe changed the subject. “Some of us can’t travel well at night, so we must find a place to camp. We’ll have to forage for some food, and maybe Alien can keep watch—“
“So long as I get to sleep by day,” Alien agreed.
Echo assumed her harpy form again and flew ahead to scout for a good camping site. The others walked at a relatively sedate pace. “What happened?” Nepe asked Sirel.
Sirel assumed human form again. “I spied the goblin camp, so circled around, and had almost completed the loop. Became I careless then.” She flushed in the human fashion; it was most embarrassing, even for a half-grown pup.
Soon Oche returned. “There be fruit trees near,” she screeched. “And a field full o’ rabbits.”
“Excellent!” Nepe said. Her legs were so tired now that she could hardly wait to dissolve into a relaxed puddle.
In the morning, somewhat refreshed, they set off anew. Nepe assumed her human form, with an especially thick mass of hair, and Alien clung to it and slept. He preferred to hang upside down, but could manage in any position when the need arose. Sirel and Echo, both in human form, walked beside each other, and Lysander brought up the rear, still invisible. At the rate they were going, they would never make it to the West Pole in time, but Nepe wasn’t concerned about that. Their rate would change.
Then the last two members of their party intercepted them. A blue heron flew slowly overhead, and immediately Echo turned harpy and flapped up to hail it. The heron followed her down, and manifested as Belle, the purple unicorn with the iridescent mane. There was a healing scar on her rump. From her back a firefly flew, and manifested as Neysa, the black unicorn with white socks.
“Grandam Neysa!” Nepe exclaimed happily, hardly caring about the technicality that she was Flach’s grandam.
Now Nepe rode Neysa, and Lysander rode Belle, whom he had met before. Oche perched on Belle’s rump, careful not to dig in her claws, and Alien continued to snooze on Nepe’s hair. Sirel resumed wolf form and ranged beside them. Their party of seven was complete, and ready to move swiftly.
The two unicorn mares were old, but were ready for this effort; their strength and endurance had been magically enhanced. They set off like fillies, achieving a hard gallop that covered the ground in a manner few other creatures could match. Nepe relaxed; they knew where they were going, and they knew the terrain. There should be no problems.
The unicorns were indeed prepared. They pounded ahead not only through the day, but through the night, pausing only for natural-function breaks. Sirel was unable to maintain the pace; she assumed girl form and joined Nepe on Neysa; the two together weighed about what Lysander did, so the unicorn was not overburdened.
It was not dull, riding for hours without surcease. The unicorns played music to the beat of their hooves, Neysa’s harmonica and Belle’s bells merging in extemporaneous melodies and harmonies. Along their route the little animals came out to listen and watch, for the sound and sight of traveling unicorns was always special. These mares might be old, but they remained glorious in their motion.
So it was that on the third day, in plenty of time, they approached the West Pole. There was nothing fancy about it; it was just a place on an island. The water had posed a small problem, but four of them had flying forms, and the other three simply swam across. The two unicorns could have taken to the water to spear any creature who threatened the swimmers; perhaps aware of that, the predators had stayed clear. It was also possible that even the predators realized that this was a very special party, on a very special mission that would benefit every creature of Phaze.
But as they came to the Pole, they had an ugly shock. There was a Hectare guarding it. Nepe had been ready to handle a golem; the wooden things were not smart, and simple illusion could do a lot. But a BEM—this was disaster!
Alien was the one who spied it, flying ahead in the predawn darkness, scouting the way as he fed on insects. As ‘Corn he had seen the Hectare, when his father turned himself in; ‘Corn himself had been beneath notice, and promptly assumed his Phaze identity so as to remain clear of the invader. The Hectare had been cognizant of the fact that operations would be smoother if households were allowed to maintain themselves, so only the dangerous individuals were impounded. Thus Trool, the Red Adept, was prisoner, his Book of Magic mysteriously missing. But his wife, the beautiful vampire woman Suchevane, and son Alien remained at the Red Demesnes. Similar was true elsewhere. The families remained scrupulously inactive—until this present mission with Nepe.
They halted as soon as Alien returned to give the alarm. None of them could afford to be spied in Nepe’s company by a Hectare, and Nepe hardly dared show herself in recognizable form. But the Hectare was standing directly on the West Pole; there was no way to avoid it.
They took shelter in the lee of a great gnarly blue birch tree and consulted, all taking human forms except Belle, who had none. So she lay and rested in feline form, alert for any intrusion from without, while they focused their lesser human senses on the problem.
“ ‘Sander, you know about Hectare,” Nepe said. “Maybe now is when you fulfill the prophecy. How do we get to the Pole? Can we lure the BEM away, distract it, or something?”
“You can’t do that,” Lysander said from seeming air. “No Hectare has any interest in anything local except its assignment, which is obviously in this case to prevent any native from approaching the Pole. I presume that someone told them that the Pole was important, so they covered it.”
“Mayhap they espied us coming here, so laid in wait,” Sirel said.
“More likely they realized that there was activity at the North Pole, so set guards at all the Poles,” Nepe said. “I think Purp made Brown send golems north, but the West Pole is temperate, so a Hec can handle it. But we have to reach that Pole by the end of today, or we fail.”
“Fail in what?” Lysander asked.
“If I knew, I wouldn’t tell you!” Nepe retorted.
“Now wait, Nepe,” Echo protested. “You want his help, but he has to know how his expertise relates if he is to provide it. Maybe between what you know of the mission, and what he knows of the Hectare, you can find a way through.”
She was right. Echo was a woman in love, but she had a good human mind. “I apologize, Lysander,” Nepe said. “I’ll tell you all I know, if you’ll te!l us all you know that relates.”
“It’s a deal,” he agreed.
“I have three messages, which I must listen to and implement in order, not even listening to the next until the first is done. The first was to go to the North Pole. So Flach went. He got the help of the snow demons, and used his magic to keep them from freezing him or him from melting them, and they took him to the North Pole. Under it was a chamber where the Black and Green Adepts were. They had planted a Magic Bomb which will destroy the planet if we don’t stop it. We came back with them, and they gave themselves up to the Hec. My next message was to take a Hec seed to the West Pole, by the end of today, and to bring along whom the wolves sent. I don’t know what’s there, but maybe another chamber. Maybe that’s where the Book of Magic is. So I have to take the seed there, and that’s all I know.”
“That must be all the Hectare know, too,” Lysander said. “If there had been anything there to find, they would have found it. So they posted a guard and are waiting to see what your business here is, if there is any. They are probably guarding all the Poles as a matter of routine precaution, after discovering the activity at the North Pole; they may not know whether any other Poles have activity. So this is probably just a guard, not an administrator. But why haven’t they dismantled the Bomb at the North Pole?”
Nepe smiled. “It’s not possible. It turned out that it’s frozen slow under the Pole. They actually set off the Bomb, but things are so slow there that it’ll take six weeks for the blast to get out of the chamber. When it does it’ll destroy the planet, and all of us with it. So the Hec will never get to exploit this world, no matter what. Maybe Clef is waiting with the Book of Magic to null the Bomb at the last moment after the Hec give up and go home; I don’t know. I just know I have to do what I have to do, or it’s all gone.”
“The Adepts are playing hard!” Lysander remarked, and the others nodded agreement; this had been news to them too. “But it gives me a notion. There must be a similar chamber below the West Pole, that the Hectare can’t enter because it would take them far too long to do so. Similarly, they can’t nullify it from outside, because it is what’s inside that has to be affected; they might destroy it from outside, but if it contains the spell to nullify the Magic Bomb, that would be disastrous. So they are waiting for you, to see how you approach it.”
“But I don’t know how to do that!” Nepe protested. “All I can do is drop the Hec seed in, and then listen to my third message.”
“So if we do nothing,” he said, “your mission will fail, and the planet will be lost. Presumably the nullification process involves the seed, and has to be started today or it will be too late. If your mission fails, so does the Hectare’s mission, because in six weeks they will only have established the apparatus to exploit the planet; they can’t do the job on any faster schedule. So I can appreciate the beauty of the Adept ploy, and I see that I have to help you succeed, for your side and mine.”
“You have the idea,” she agreed. “Now tell me how we can get by that Hec. Can we sneak up on it, or charge it and knock it out?”
“Hardly. The Hectare’s eyes cover the full hemisphere that is the side of the planet where it stands. Those facets are the lenses for its thousand-plus eyes. Each covers one section of the hemisphere, and nothing is missed. It surely saw Alien fly by, but because bats are a normal part of the night it took no action. You can not approach it without being observed as soon as there is a line of sight, and you can not attack it, because the moment you tried to it would recognize the weapon and use one of its lasers to stop you. That single Hectare guard could simultaneously laser all seven of us, because it would orient several eyes on each and coordinate them with the weapons-tentacles. When it comes to observation and combat, no creature on this planet can match the Hectare.”
She had suspected as much, because of the way the Adepts had yielded to the Hectare. The Hectare had their ships threatening the planet, true, but they would not have been eager to destroy it; they wanted to exploit it. So they had to be good on the ground, too. They knew what they were doing, and they were individually sharp. “But there has to be a way!” she said.
“There may be. But it’s a gamble—a big one.”
“Go on. It can’t be worse than the gamble of not getting through.”
“It may be. You will have to approach the Hectare under a flag of neutrality and challenge it to a game.”
“They are gameoholics!” she exclaimed, seeing it.
“And if it agrees, then you can bargain for the stakes. If you win, it must let you and your party through. But if you lose—“
“My left hand!” she said, feeling the pain of amputation, though she would be able to restore the hand from her body mass.
“And perhaps that of any member of your party who wants to pass with you,” he said. “The Hectare like to game, but they like equivalent stakes, too. Since it can stun you and turn you in and gain a commendation for wrapping up the resistance, you will have to offer a lot to balance that out.”
“More than my hand?”
“More than your capture, probably. Since it would know that it is wagering its own betrayal of its side...”
“More than my capture?” This was more serious than even she had imagined.
“Probably you would have to agree to serve the Hectare loyally, betraying all your former associates.”
Worse yet! “I don’t think I can do that. I mean, the fate of the planet—“
“Yes. The fate of the planet, because it would terminate your mission and mine. But you have to bargain in good faith. If you expect it to do so. It will match your honor. The Hectare are creatures of honor; it is their specialty. So my advice to you, as a commonsense thing, is not to make that wager, because you stand to lose everything if you lose, while if you win, you gain only the chance to complete the second part of your mission.”
“But if I do nothing, and don’t complete my mission, we lose anyway!” she protested.
“Unless there is some other mission you don’t know about.”
“I don’t think so,” she said, troubled. “No, I have to go on with it. But I’m supposed to take Sire! and Alien with me, so the risk is theirs too.” She looked at the werewolf and vampire bat. “What do you two say?”
“We must do it.” Sirel said, looking uncomfortable.
“I agree,” Alien said, evidently feeling no better.
“Then the three of us will approach the Hectare and bargain,” Nepe said. “The rest of you will have to wait for us—if we win. If we lose, you must go back and tell the others to hide from us, because we will be your enemies. You must not delay, because the Hectare will be after you.”
Neysa, in human form, nodded. Echo looked doubtful.
“If Nepe loses,” Lysander said, “Echo joins me, and the unicorns take off. If Nepe wins, we will wait for her return, and continue helping her.”
That seemed reasonable. Lysander was going along with the Hectare wager. This made it easy for Echo to remain with him, without having to betray her culture. “Then you four remain and watch. Lysander can watch without being seen. By the day’s end you will know.”
“We will know,” Echo said grimly.
“I’m not sure what form to take,” Nepe said. She hadn’t thought of this aspect before, because she had never expected to encounter a Hectare here.
“It will know that this can not be an innocent encounter,” Lysander’s voice came. “Best to identify yourself clearly, and bargain honestly. If you try to deceive it. it will refuse to listen to anything else you say.”
That seemed to make sense. Why would three children come alone to the West Pole? The monster had to know it was important the moment they showed themselves.
“Hold something white aloft as you approach,” Lysander said. “The Hectare will know the human parley convention.”
“Something white,” Nepe said, casting about and finding nothing.
“I have a slip Tsetse gave me,” Echo said. She lifted her skirt, took hold of the undergarment, and pulled it quickly down. It was suitably white.
“Thank you,” Nepe said. “I hope I can return it.”
“That means nothing,1’ Echo said. “You and I will be on the same side either way.”
That was true. Nepe nerved herself. “We must do it now; we do not know how long the game will take.”
Sirel and Alien stepped forward, retaining human form. Nepe suddenly realized that they made a nice couple, this way; it wasn’t evident that they were actually wolf and bat—or, in their Proton identities, robot and human being. Stranger liaisons had occurred; how well she knew!
Nepe took the slip and held it aloft. She walked around the tree and toward the Pole. Sirel and Alien fell into step behind her. The others neither spoke nor moved.
Soon they came into sight of the Hectare. Nepe had seen the creatures before, but this time she felt a special chill, because she knew she was going to have to brace this one directly, and that her freedom and planet were on the line. She had no certainty of winning the game; indeed, she didn’t know what game it would be. Suppose they couldn’t agree on one? Then the Hectare might simply capture the three, and it would be over.
The Hectare gave no sign. It stood there as they approached, unmoving. But the fact that it had not fired on them was a positive sign.
At last the three stood before the monster. The Hectare, indistinguishable from any other of its kind, loomed above the three children. Its eye facets were greenish, as were its central mass of tentacles, but its lower portion was brownish. It seemed to have no front and no back; it was a bit like a giant toadstool. She understood that the Hectare breathed the air, but this was not apparent; probably they passed it continuously through hidden gills.
“We come to parley,” Nepe said. “Do you understand?”
A single tentacle extended, and its end turned up.
“Do you recognize us?” she asked.
Three tentacles extended. The one pointing to Nepe turned up; the ones pointing to the other two turned down.
“Then we shall introduce ourselves,” Nepe said. “I am Nepe. whom you are seeking. The boy is Alien, a vampire bat. The girl is Sirel, a werebitch. Both are my friends of long standing.”
The tentacle toward Alien made a turning motion. Alien nodded, then assumed his bat form, hovering in place. In a moment he resumed boy form.
The tentacle toward Sirel gestured. She became the young wolf, then reverted.
Now all three tentacles turned up. The Hectare knew them as well as it cared to.
“We must go to the West Pole,” Nepe said. “You must let us do this.”
The Hectare neither budged nor signaled—which was answer enough.
“I will play a game with you,” Nepe said. “If I win, you will let the three of us do what we wish, and will not report our presence here. If you win, we shall join the Hectare and loyally serve your side against our own culture. We prefer not to lose our hands, but we shall be in your power for whatever you decide—if I lose.” And there it was: her offer of betrayal, which she would honor if she had to. The notion appalled her, but she believed Lysander: if she did not honestly put her loyalty on the line, she could not expect the Hectare to agree to let them pass, for its loyalty was also on the line. They were wagering for betrayal.
The Hectare did not even pause. The tentacles straightened, then turned up. It had agreed. Lysander was right, so far: they were gameoholics who could not resist an honest challenge, whatever the consequence.
“We must choose the game fairly,” Nepe said, her voice sounding controlled though she was fighting to suppress a feeling of terror. She had no commitment from the monster about the nature of the game; she should have put that in her initial statement.
But the tentacle turned up in agreement. It seemed that the thing desired a fair game.
Nepe used her foot to scuff a line in the dirt. She made a second line, and a third. “We have no Game Computer,” she said. “But we can place choices, and play the grid. One grid. Agreed?”
The Hectare agreed. It remained a bug-eyed monster, but its responses were so sure and just that she was coming to respect it despite her antipathy to its person and all it stood for. Actions did indeed count more than appearance!
“Is a grid of nine enough?” she asked as she made the cross lines.
Four tentacles extended. “Four on a side?” she asked.
A downturn. “A four-box grid?” she asked, surprised. “Two placements by each?”
The tentacle turned up.
“Okay. That’s fair. We can place our choices slantwise, and then choose our columns. Is there an even way to do that?”
The tentacle turned up again. Nepe didn’t know what the Hectare had in mind, but was coming to trust it. “I choose the game of marbles,” she said, and used her finger to write the word in one corner.
The Hectare extended a tentacle, reaching the ground readily. The tentacles looked short, but stretched. It wrote LASER MARKSMANSHIP in a box.
She would be lost if she had to compete in that! She knew how to do it, and surely the monster would lend her a weapon, but she knew that all Hectare were perfect shots with such weapons. Suddenly she doubted that her childish game of marbles was a good choice; those tentacles could probably also shoot little glass spheres with perfect accuracy.
She thought a moment, then came up with something that might be impossible for the monster: “Hopscotch,” she said, and wrote it in her other box.
Unperturbed, the Hectare wrote POKER in the final box. Was it good at card games, or did it merely enjoy the challenge? Now she was uncertain. A true gameoholic might want a good game more than a victory.
The box was now complete: HOPSCOTCH and POKER on one row, LASER MARKSMANSHIP and MARBLES on the other.
“How can we choose columns?” she asked.
Tentacles pointed to Alien and Sirel. “Face away and throw one of two fingers!” Nepe exclaimed, seeing it. She used the numbers 1 and 2 to mark both the horizontal and vertical columns. “I will take the horizontals, the one if they throw odd, the two if they throw even. You will take the verticals and the same numbers, in your turn. Agreed?”
The tentacle turned up. The Hectare evidently wasn’t fussy about the details as long as the choosing was impartial.
“Do it,” Nepe said. “This is random, but it always is, really.”
The two faced away. “Now!” Nepe cried.
Both lifted hands. Sirel had one finger extended, Alien two. “Odd,” Nepe announced. “I choose the number one line. Now throw for the Hectare.”
The two threw fingers again. This time Sirel lifted two, and Alien one. “Odd,” Nepe said. “So it is column one for the Hectare.”
Nepe looked at the grid. Box 1-1 was HOPSCOTCH. She had won her choice!
But she couldn’t relax. “Do you know how to play?” she asked the Hectare.
The tentacle extended, first turning up, then down.
“You mean you know generally, but not the variants?”
The tentacle turned up.
“Then here is the way I play it, and if you don’t like this variant, we’ll try another. Since we both play by the same rules, it will be fair once we agree.”
She used the flat of her foot to wipe the dirt smooth, then carefully scuffed the diagram. “This is called Heaven and Earth Hopscotch,” she said. “But there’s Hell in it too. I’ll mark everything so it’s clear what I’m talking about.”
In due course she had it complete: twelve boxes in a column marked HEAVEN, HELL, EARTH, and numbered 1 through 9.
HEAVEN
HELL
9
7
8
6
4
5
3
2
1
EARTH
Then she glanced at the Hectare. “Can you hop? You have to hop from box to box. One foot, like this.” She lifted her left foot and hopped on her right.
The monster considered. Its feet were short, thickened tentacles, with wartlike excrescences that evidently served for traction. They also resembled caterpillar treads, in a way. It hardly seemed that such a creature could hop!
Then it separated its foot tentacle treads into two segments, shifted its mass, hoisted up one segment, and heaved itself up. Its torso rippled grotesquely and the “foot” came up, then landed to the side. The body tilted as if about to fall, until the other foot came down to catch it.
to catch it.
“That’s it,” Nepe agreed, impressed. “Only in the game you have to stay on one foot when you land, except in some places. Let me show you.”
The tentacle extended, and tilted down.
“You don’t want to play?” she asked, concerned. If the BEM changed its mind now, her chance would be gone. The tentacle made its rotary motion.
“Turn around?” she asked blankly.
It turned around.
“Something else? That turning motion means neither yes nor no?”
It turned up.
She was getting better at interpreting the signals. “You are playing, but not the way I said?”
The tentacle whirled.
Well, she had thought she was getting better! What was the creature getting at?
“Maybe it wants to go ahead and play now,” Sirel suggested.
The tentacle pointed to Sirel, tilted up.
“You mean I should take my turn, and you’ll learn from that?” Nepe asked. “If I explain as I do it?”
The tentacle turned up.
This must be one smart monster! It figured to catch on to the whole set of rules, with one example. That was a chilling signal of its confidence!
Nepe addressed the diagram. “Oops, I forgot the markers! We need one for each of us.” She looked around. “A stone, or chip of wood, or a bag of sand—maybe those balls of moss.” She went to fetch a selection. “Something that you can throw accurately, so it doesn’t bounce or slide away, because if it winds up outside the box or on a fine, you lose your turn.” She laid the objects out in a line. “Choose one.”
The tentacle pointed to her.
“Okay, I’ll choose first.” She picked up a bit of bark with moss covering it, as though it had sprouted hair.
The Hectare picked up a bit of twisted root, whose rootlets resembled tentacles.
She cleared away the other fragments, then addressed the diagram again. She stepped into the EARTH square. “This is where you start. You have to stand inside it. Then you toss your marker into Block One.” She did so, dropping it into the center of the right side. “Then you hop there, pick it up, and hop back.” She did so. “Only in Earth—or later in Heaven—can you stand on both feet and rest. That’s the basic game, but it gets more difficult as it goes.”
She stood again in the EARTH square and threw her marker into Block Two. Then she hopped to it, picked up the marker, and hopped back. “You keep going until you make a mistake; then it’s the other player’s turn.”
She played to Block Three, then to Block Four, the first of the paired blocks. “Once you pass these two, you can put both feet down as you pass,” she said. “But only in Blocks Four and Five, and in Seven and Eight, and only when you’re traveling past them. When your marker’s there, you have to hop as usual.”
She played on, concentrating harder as the tosses got longer. When she aimed for Block Nine, her marker bounced into HELL. “Hell!” she exclaimed. “That means not only does my turn end, I have to start over from the beginning next time. If I had missed anywhere else, I could have picked up next time where I left off.” She walked around the diagram, picked up her marker, and set it in a corner of EARTH, showing her place in the game. “Your turn, Hectare.”
The Hectare stepped into the EARTH box, hefted its marker on a tentacle, and flipped it into Block One. It lifted its left foot-tentacle-tread, and hopped lumberingly into the box. It extended the tentacle to pick up the marker. Then it hopped back to EARTH, not turning; to it, any direction was forward.
Nepe quickly saw that the creature had unerring aim, but was relatively clumsy on the hopping. She, in contrast, might miss her throw but never her hop. It seemed to be an even game, so far.
The Hectare proceeded smoothly through Block Five, then lost coordination as it tried to put down both treads on the way to Block Six. It had gotten balanced for one, and the attempt to put down two, then return to one was too much; it recovered balance, but one tread nudged over a line.
The Hectare left the marker, stepped out of the diagram, and waited for Nepe to resume her turn. She had not challenged the error; it had acted on its own. She had to respect the creature for being a fair player. Lysander had said that honor was a BEM specialty; evidently it was.
She went quickly through the opening squares, and concentrated intently as she reached the Nine. This time her marker landed in the center. She hopped to it, picked it up, and returned to EARTH.
“This is just the first and easiest course,” she said. “Now I must toss my marker into HEAVEN, go there, and use it as the base to play the squares in reverse order.”
She tossed her marker, having less trouble with the larger square. Then she hopped to it. When she was in HEAVEN, she picked up her marker and tossed it into Block Nine. She continued to play in that direction.
She made it through, and started on the next sequence: shoving the marker with her lifted foot as she hopped from EARTH to HEAVEN, and from HEAVEN to EARTH.
“Next I have to balance it on one foot,” she said. “If I make it through this, the next is balancing it on my head.”
But she didn’t make it through. She lost it as she picked it up on Block Six and tried to put both feet down on Four and Five; the shock of the contact with the ground jogged it loose. “I’ll have to pick up at Block Six next time,” she said with regret. “You have to do it right, all the way, before you can go on.”
Now the monster took its turn. Starting on the same Block Six, but with a simpler exercise, it proceeded on through the course. It had learned how to hop better, from practice or from watching her, and was much smoother now.
Indeed, it went on past her, having no trouble shoving the marker while hopping. It also was able to balance it on the lifted fool. The rate at which the creature gained skill was disheartening; Nepe was very much afraid she was going to lose. She would not be able to cry foul, because it was her choice of games and the Hectare was playing fair. She would have to betray her society, and perhaps the last hope of saving her world from destructive exploitation.
The Hectare proceeded to the next course. It set the marker on the top of its head. But this was awkward, because its head was composed entirely of eye facets. It evidently did not like having something sitting directly on an eye, understandably, but the facet was glassy, and the marker did not seem to hurt it. However, that same glassiness posed a problem. When the Hectare hopped, the marker slid, and only with a special effort did the creature retain it. And hopped into a line. Its turn had ended.
Now Nepe’s hope revived. She played on from the Six, and with inspired balancing got through. Then she started on the head. Her eyes were not on top, so that did not disturb her; indeed, her wild hair helped hold the marker in place.
To a degree. The Six Block caught her again, because she had to put both feet down on Four and Five, and it changed her orientation. The marker slid off.
The Hectare resumed at Block One, with its marker on its eye facet. It hopped—but again the marker slid off. It was evident that when the monster’s sight was obstructed, in however minor a manner, its equilibrium suffered, ruining its concentration.
Nepe stepped up to take her turn. Now she had a real chance, for the monster had not passed her by in its turn!
The Hectare stepped forward, barring her play.
“But it’s my turn!” Nepe protested.
The Hectare picked up its marker and dropped it at her feet. Then it walked away from the diagram—and the West Pole.
“It’s conceding!” Alien cried. “Thou didst win, Nepe!”
Nepe, amazed, realized that it was so. The Hectare had realized that she had a decisive advantage at this stage. Only it knew how difficult this course was for it. Rather than continue to flub turns, it had yielded the victory.
“It’s true?” Nepe asked the Hectare, who had taken a stance a short distance apart from them. “You will let us go to the Pole, and you won’t interfere or report us?”
The tentacle extended and turned up. The BEM was one good loser!
“Then I want you to know that you played a good game, and I thought I was going to lose,” she said. “I didn’t know you would have that trouble with the marker on your head. I would have served you if I had lost, and I am glad to see that you are honoring our deal too.”
The tentacle tilted up. That was all. The Hectare watched, but made no other motion.
Nepe was coming to respect the BEMs. They did have honor, as well as intelligence and skill.
“Come on, then!” she exclaimed to her companions. “We’re in time after all.”
They approached the spot. It was marked by an X on the ground. That was all.
“This be where the curtains crossed, in the old days,” Alien said. “My sire spoke o’ it.”
“But there are no curtains now,” Nepe said. “Everything’s merged, so there’s no line of separation. But it has to be important some way.”
She squatted, tracing her fingers through the dirt. The X was actually a ridge, not a mere marking. She took hold of the ridge and pulled.
It came up. The others jumped in to help, and in a moment the lid covering a hole was all the way over and back. Below was darkness.
“But methinks the BEM could have done this,” Sirel said. “Why did it but guard?”
“Because time changes inside,” Nepe said. “It may be slower in there, which makes it dangerous for anyone who doesn’t belong.” She stared down into the mysterious region. “And maybe for us too. But either we have to go in—or just drop the seed in.”
“Alien and I would have been asked to come with thee not,” Sirel said, “an there be not reason. Needs must we go in, come what may.”
That seemed to be the case. “Then we shall do it,” Nepe said. She put her foot to the hole—and found a barrier. It would not go down.
“But I think not in this form,” she said after a moment. “Maybe it is barred to human beings and aliens.”
Sirel assumed her bitch form. She extended a paw, and it passed the barrier without impediment.
Alien became the bat, and flew down into the hole. He neither slowed nor fell; indeed, he bounced back out so suddenly Nepe was surprised. He resumed human form. “It be fast in there!” he exclaimed. “When I went down, it were the two of you who froze, responding to me not.”
“Fast!” Nepe exclaimed. “That may explain much!”
“It be not deep,” Alien continued. “I fathomed it with mine ears, and it turns below and makes a slanting tunnel a wolf could walk.”
She changed her structure, forcing the Hectare seed out. She held it in her hand, protecting it. Then she turned the body over to Flach. He would have to take it from here, for only magic could relate properly to this.