The Gentle Seduction

by Marc Stiegler

  He looked at her quizzically. "Don't you remember? You were going to kill the jammer."

  "I was joking."

  "You may think so now, but you were serious then. Think, lady. How did this happen? It's sure not a natural phenomenon. You said yourself that plenty of species hate us."

  "Nobody'd dare attack us!"

  "The Squishies dared to attack me, even though I was on my way here."

  "What?!"

  Veddin told her about the ambush. "This jamming would be a brilliant coup de grace for them. I'd swear this was their doing, if I knew how they could have done it." He shrugged. "I don't know how anybody else could have done it, either. I still bet it's the Squishies."

  Autumn was silent.

  The DareDrop was clearly visible now. "I'll race you to the ship," Veddin offered as he began trotting. Autumn passed him in a flurry of blonde hair, and he was surprised to find himself gasping for breath when he caught up with her. "Men are so weak," she sniffed as they climbed aboard.

  As Veddin plunked down into his chair, he glanced up at Autumn. "I'll bet we don't know how to get to your research island, do we?"

  Autumn groaned. "No, you're right."

  "Um. Fortunately I have given this matter some thought. You say the machines here know how to get around?"

  "Yes, but they all use transmitted power. They're all shut down."

  Veddin laughed. "Not all. Just the ones in this island cluster, that are powered by the deactivated reactor. Which reminds me." He closed his eyes for a few seconds. "There. I've called some of my senships into planet orbit, to watch for exploding reactors. And I've sent a message shuttle back to Kaylanx, to tell them that the Couples of Hydra are out of commission, and they'd better get the warfleet back in shape before the Squishies show up." He closed his eyes again, to concentrate on the DareDrop. "Back to current events. What's the name of the island we're looking for?"

  "Pyrta."

  Veddin relaxed in his chair, working with his ship to communicate with Hydras network of automatons. "Strap yourself in. We're gonna make this a short ride."

  The blastoff was less than gentle. Veddin had pangs of sympathy for Autumn, listening to her gasp for breath, but he could no longer suppress the sense of urgency he'd felt since they were stranded in the city. Pyrta was near the equator; he could just see the two of them arriving in time to watch a hurricane smash whatever useful equipment there might be to bits.

  Once in free fall, Veddin asked more questions about Hydrans. "Autumn, why are humans so different from other species? What makes human psis so much more powerful—and so much more rare?"

  Autumn looked a bit wan from the acceleration and now the weightlessness, but she answered nevertheless. "There are a lot of arguments about that; it may be the hottest question the biologists have." She untangled her arms from the webbing, tried to get comfortable. "One part of the answer is pretty straightforward. As the . . . complexity, I guess, of an organism increases, the probability of resonant psibond formation decreases: There are so many more links required to form the resonance. The flip side of that, though, is once those linkages form, the resonance is much more powerful." Her expression turned perplexed. "What we don't really understand yet is how we could have evolved so far before developing psychic powers. Everywhere else, psi develops before intelligence does. Psychic ability usually serves as the bridge from muscle-oriented evolution to intelligence-oriented evolution. 'Course, the evolution of intelligence doesn't go too far. It always plateaus before the beings get too complex for near-one-hundred-percent pair formation. An average alien Couple isn't quite as smart as an average human in isolation."

  Veddin nodded. "How related are complexity and intelligence? Are more intelligent Couples more powerful as well?"

  "Not necessarily. Psi power and intelligence are related statistically, but not directly. My parents, for example, have a normal, single-resonance bond. But they're very intelligent, or they wouldn't be the Commissioners." She shook her head. "On the other hand, there are some really dumb Couples out there that are awfully powerful."

  Veddin chuckled. "I see." He thought for a moment. "But you still haven't told me why man developed so much intelligence without developing any psychic powers along the way."

  "Nobody knows. We think early man must have had psychic abilities; marginal pre-men wouldn't stand a chance without it." She shrugged. "But then the psychic abilities disappeared, somehow. The pre-men had developed just enough so that continued evolution of intelligence worked better than reverting to animals."

  Veddin closed his eyes as the DareDrop interrupted. "Get ready. Were going back down." Just before the acceleration hit, he wondered, "You know, maybe the same thing happened to those pre-men that's happening here."

  "What?"

  "Wouldn't that explain it? Suppose somebody started jamming the psifields on Earth, way back when?"

  Before Autumn could reply, the breath was squeezed from their bodies.

  They stepped out of the DareDrop into a large circle of scorched earth. The stench from the crisped wildlife caused them both to gag.

  "You practically destroyed the place we were coming to visit," Autumn complained. "Even our biggest ships don't wreck the landscape this way."

  They hurried from the area. "The DareDrop is a warship, woman. It is not a sightseeing bus. You need power in a warship, not pretty baffling." They were out of the ring of destruction, and the air was laden with the smell of flowers of all kinds. Veddin sneezed, powerfully, and stifled a second attempt by his nose to protect itself.

  "Are you all right?"

  He straightened up, gritted his teeth. "Sure." He was allergic to flowers, but he'd survive. "I just hope the buildings are air conditioned."

  The heart of the university was six six-story buildings hexagonally arranged. Veddin remained in contact with the DareDrop via a portable shiplink amplifier. And the DareDrop, in turn, stayed in contact with Hydra s automaton network. The ship told him which building contained the Berrens office; he led Autumn at a brisk pace through the doors.

  There were two people in the outer hall, one clinging to the left wall, one to the right, dying. Autumn hugged herself closer to Veddin. "What can we do?" she whispered.

  "Stop the jammer," Veddin replied, walking past them.

  They stopped as they reached the center well of the building. "Great," Veddin muttered, "now what?" They looked around together. "Don't they have a directory or something on the wall, to tell you how to get to different offices?"

  Autumn pointed at a booth with two chairs. "Usually, there's a receptionist who—"

  "Who puts you in Touch with the people you're looking for. I should have guessed." Veddin snorted. "Why is nothing ever easy here?"

  Just then, a Couple came to the rail on the second floor. "Who are you?" the man croaked. He had obviously not used language for years.

  "We're looking for Couple Berrens," Veddin called out. He saw a staircase and, grabbing Autumn's hand, hurried for the second floor. "Don't go away, we'll be up in a second."

  "Where is there worth going?" the woman said with cold amusement. "There is, of course, our office, which is at least comfortable. Follow us."

  Cursing under his breath, Veddin reached the second floor just in time to watch the Couple disappear down a corridor. He and Autumn caught up as they turned right through a glasscene door with the inscription Couple Shayloh above it.

  Still holding hands, the Couple wrenched the curtains apart to let in some light. "Who are you? What did you come here for?" the man asked.

  "I'm Autumn Westfall, and this is Veddin Zhukpokrovsk."

  Veddin gave them a Kaylanxian salute.

  "We're here to see Drs. Berrens, to see if they have any machines we can use to track down the jammer."

  "Really," the woman said, with the same cold amusement she'd shown earlier. The Couple took a couch in one corner of the room; Autumn led Veddin to a couch across from them.

  The woman continued.
"I'm intrigued. Imagine using a machine to locate a source of psi power."

  The man chuckled; at least, that's what Veddin took his gagging sound to mean. "Yes, my dear, a machine." He looked at Autumn. "Unfortunately, Drs. Berrens are dead. The shock of separation was too much for them."

  Veddin had seen too much death to be shocked; he was more intrigued by the Shaylohs. "What about you two? Why haven't you died?"

  "Because we are class 9 resonants," the woman began haughtily.

  "Not even the most powerful jamming could possibly break our bond," the man ended.

  "Can you locate the jammer for us?" Veddin demanded.

  "No." The man wheezed. "We can't even transmit to you across the room." His wheeze turned into a sigh. "It hardly seems worth living."

  The woman spoke again. "You're isolates, aren't you? That's why you're not affected."

  Autumn blushed. "No, we're a Couple, but we had just met each other when the jamming started, so we really didn't get a chance to, well . . ."

  "We haven't lost our souls, like everybody else on this planet," Veddin said in disgust.

  The Couple stared at Veddin long and hard. "Don't mock us, isolate," the man said.

  "You have no idea how great the gift of psi resonance is," the woman said.

  Veddin started to lose control of his temper. "But I do know how great the price is, half-creature. Are you even now too blind to see how much you've lost?" Veddin shook his head. "No matter. Tell us, how do we find the Berrens laboratory?"

  "I don't know how to explain in words," the man said in anger.

  "Then lead us," Veddin demanded.

  The man just glared at him. Suddenly Veddin was aware of the time ticking by, while people all over the planet drew closer to death in many hideous ways, and his patience disappeared. With two swift strides he was between the paired ones, and he wrenched them apart. "Tell us," he spat.

  The man shrieked; the woman whimpered. "Please," they begged as one.

  Autumn started to speak, but Veddin broke her off. "Tell me," he repeated.

  "Hemten!" the man choked out. A wide slab of metal rolled around the corner. "Our research robot will show you," he explained.

  Still Veddin held the Couple apart while the robot whirred into the room, until they had explained to the robot what was wanted.

  "Release them," Autumn begged.

  "Of course," Veddin replied, doing so.

  Huddled in each other's arms, the Shaylohs glared at Veddin. "On another day, we would have destroyed a barbaric creature who dared to keep us apart," the woman said.

  Veddin turned to them with a hot reply, but he took a deep breath and willed himself to remember the warm welcome he'd received in approaching Hydra, and the gentle power of those who had come to Kaylanx to stop the war. "On another day, you would be a noble and generous Couple, and we would be friends."

  As they followed the robot down the hall, Veddin noticed Autumn pondering him reflectively. "You were barbaric in there," she said, "but you were right. And, at the end . . . You're not a barbarian." She held out her hand, and they moved together into the room through which the robot disappeared.

  The walls were studded with readouts and mechanical arms; the central workbench was littered with parts and patching. Veddin saw movement out of the corner of his eye. He turned and gasped. "Squishies!" With a vicious tug he pulled Autumn behind him, and from the bench he grabbed the longest tool he could reach. "Get down!" he ordered Autumn, then leaped at the two purplish, jelly-soft humanoids who stared at him with unreadable expressions.

  "Wait!" Autumn screamed in his ear, then grabbed at his drawn-back arm. Veddin, surprised and off balance, tumbled to the floor. "They're not Diorecians!" Autumn cried. "They're our friends!"

  Veddin rolled catlike to his feet. He paused just long enough to see that indeed these were not quite like the Squishies he'd fought at Kaylanx. The noses were flatter, the arms longer, and the faces held flecks of green.

  Autumn blocked his path. "It's all right. This is a Couple from Tarca. The Tarcans are on our side: though they think we're deformed mutants, they're more amazed than horrified. Hydra is crawling with Tarcan scientists who're studying us like crazy. We're the most interesting puzzle to come along in millennia."

  As Autumn spoke, the aliens moved very slowly, their outside hands raised in weaponless greeting, their inner hands clasped together. When they were close, one hand reached out to Veddin. His muscles writhed in horror, but he let the alien touch him.

  He came into direct mental contact with the Couple. Since they had also touched Autumn, he had indirect contact with her as well.

  "Aha," the aliens thought. "Another powerful resonance broken asunder." The mind held a moment of puzzlement, then expressed understanding. "No—two isolates who would be Coupled, but not yet. Am I right?"

  Autumn and Veddin agreed, as two separate voices. The two alien personalities were for all practical purposes just one being, but Veddin could tell Autumn's thoughts very distinctly.

  Veddin's foremost thought was astonishment that this alien Couple was still able to transmit.

  "Yes, though human pairings come apart, our bond is unharmed," the Couple continued, amused. "Obviously."

  Again, Veddin and Autumn thought the same thought, though again they were distinct thoughts. "How can that be? Only the most multiply resonant of the human bonds have even a scrap of Coupling left."

  Again the Tarcans were amused. "Yes, this seems quite a puzzle. Human Couples are so powerful, yet so . . . fragile. We believe the difference must be evolutionary. In our species, the bonds were tested for millions of years under harsh conditions: other species on our planet also had psi, and any Couplings that could be broken were, during that time."

  Veddin saw an image of Autumn s parents, and Autumn thought at the aliens, "Can you find the source of the interference?"

  "No," was the sad response. "But we see you came seeking machines to do such seeking. We have no direction-finding mechanisms, but we do have several units that can detect psifields and measure their local strength."

  "What good will that do? If psifields don't lose strength with distance, how could we even tell if we were getting close?"

  The aliens projected no thoughts for a moment. "It is true that psifields attenuate very slowly, but they do attenuate."

  "We'll use my ship," Veddin realized. "Would interplanetary distances be enough to detect changes?"

  The aliens assented.

  "Then we should at least be able to tell whether the source is on Hydra or not."

  "Yes." The Tarcans looked at an instrument on the bench; as Veddin saw it through their eyes they explained its operation to him. "It's strictly experimental, so treat it gently," they warned.

  "Like a kitten," Veddin promised as he reached to pick up the gadget. He pointed at another piece of equipment. "That looks like another model of the same thing."

  The Tarcans agreed. "But don't try to move it; that was the first one, and it s tuning is not adjustable. Even a tiny jar could break it."

  "That's all right." Veddin turned his thoughts to Autumn. "I want you to stay here and use the old one. We need a detector permanently stationed to watch in case the jammer moves. Somehow, I suspect that when he sees my warship dropping on him, he may try to get away, or something silly like that."

  Autumn raised her eyebrows. "No way. I'm going with you. These people can watch the detector."

  Veddin snorted. "Great. How will I talk to them? I can talk to you via Hemten"—he nodded at the robot, now sitting quietly in the corner—"but not with the Tarcans. They don't even have vocal cords, do they?"

  "They know how to read and write. They can communicate with the robot just fine—better than most of the native Hydrans," Autumn retorted.

  Veddin shook his head. "Besides, things may get nasty after I find the jammer. I still think it's the Squishies. And whoever it is, he's bound to be armed to the teeth."

  Even under normal circum
stances Autumn's anger was hard to bear; but now, through the Tarcan linkage, Veddin could feel her anger in his mind. It was a palpable, relentless force. Veddin started to succumb when an alarm went off in his brain.

  It took him a second to realize that the alarm was from the DareDrop, rather than from one of the people in mental linkage. "My Lords," was his last oath before breaking contact with the Tarcans.

  With a bound he was at the door. "A Squishy fleet just skipped in," he explained rapidly, though Autumn had seen the images in his mind as well as he had. "They'll destroy the whole system if we don't stop them." He took a deep breath. "It's a big fleet." Numbers and descriptions were already pouring into his brain, and every second the prospects turned bleaker; the Squishies must have stripped their worlds raw to bring these fleets here. Lords, how Veddin hated fanatics! "I can't hold them for long. We have to find the jammer and destroy him, so your people can deal with the Squishies. I'll still take readings on the jammer's strength; I'll just do it while I'm shooting missiles and commanding a fleet." With that, he was running down the hall as fast as he could go. "Tell the robot to link to the DareDrop!" he shouted over his shoulder.

  He was being crushed to death by the fury of his own acceleration when he got the first message from Autumn. "Veddin, my detector reads 7.9."

  Veddin scowled at his own detector, sitting on his copilot couch. He remembered the Tarcans warning to treat it gently. "Gently," he muttered. He eased up on the acceleration enough to reach over and switch the thing on. "Mine reads 8.8," he radioed back to Autumn. "Obviously, our detectors aren't calibrated with each other. I guess it was silly to hope this would be easy." If his own detector was even still working correctly.

  Once out of the atmosphere he started warming up his shields and beamers. The ships in his robot fleet did the same even as they sailed into position to met the titanic swarm of enemy. For a moment he considered telling Autumn to peek out a window, to see the most incredible light show in the universe, then shrugged the idea aside. She probably wouldn't be impressed; or worse, she would be scared for his own safety in the hell that would soon evolve.