“It is complex to outsiders,” Tiala said, mistaking the reason for Melody’s request. “It is a compromise between opposing loyalties, with honor. One must perform a certain degree of service, set by circumstance. This is known as the Lot of *.”
“I had understood your own Sphere was slash.”
“My Sphere is slash. But Andromeda has been effectively unified along Spherical lines for a thousand Solarian years, ever since the First War. We have to a considerable extent merged cultural conventions, at least on Imperial worlds. Sphere Slash has honored the Lot of * for many centuries.”
Melody nodded. “As we of Mintaka honor Polarian circularity and exchange of debt. I will consider your convention, if I can comprehend its specific mechanism.”
“In this situation, I would agree to answer a number of questions to the best of my ability. You would free me thereafter.”
“I am not certain I stand to benefit. How would I be assured of accuracy?”
“Put me in the transfer unit. The fluctuations in my aura will reveal my state. Under the Lot, I am obliged to give responsive answers without deceit, drawing on what I know of your needs. You would get better information than you would in crude plumbing of my aura.”
That was possible. Melody found it easier to put a question to Yael than to delve for the answer directly; and Yael was a cooperative, voluntary host. The host always had the best command of its faculties. Now Melody was tired and uncomfortable, and the hostage would not be voluntary. It would not be a pleasant chore. “How many questions?”
“Determined by chance?”
Melody considered again. She didn’t want to hurt the girl if she didn’t have to, despite her certainty that Tiala had hurt her own host. Why undertake this difficult, perhaps risky procedure, if she had a ready alternative? And time was of the essence; she did not know how much time they had before the other hostages in the fleet caught on to what was happening and attacked. “I agree.”
Melody brought out her Tarot cube, another poignant reminder of Dash. “This deck presents Trumps numbered from zero to twenty-nine, and five sets of suit cards numbered from one to fourteen, in effect. Is this a fair range of numbers?”
Tiala nodded. “It is fair. But the dealer controls the presentation.”
Melody shook the cube and set it down. The face manifesting on the top surface was the Moon, symbol of hidden things. The Tarot was always responsive! “Select a number from one to a hundred,” Melody told Tiala.
“Sixty-four.”
“So Sphere Slash has an octal numeric system,” Melody remarked. “Skot, key this deck to present the sixty-fourth card in the present order.”
Skot, not conversant with the nuances of Tarot cube operation, did it the hard way. He touched the surface sixty-three times, watching a new face appear each time, until the sixty-fourth face appeared. It was the Three of Energy, with flaming, sprouting torches crossing each other.
“Three questions,” Melody said. “Agreed?”
Tiala nodded. “You have a certain flair.”
“How many hostages are present in the Segment Etamin fleet?”
Tiala concentrated, her brow furrowing prettily. “I can’t give the exact figure. It is a massive effort; Etamin isn’t considered a major target, not like Knyfh or Lodo or Weew with their sophisticated center-galaxy organization and technology. But Planet Outworld was the origin of the aura that balked us the first time, so…” She considered a moment more. “There are about a hundred ships in this fleet, and I think about four agents were placed on each ship, concentrating on the key vessels. About four hundred total—that’s as close as I can make it.”
Four hundred hostages! Melody had eliminated only the eleven in the officers’ section of this ship! The whole fleet might well be hostage…
But still, there was some comfort in it. With an average of four hostages per ship, the concentration had to be on the officers. The flagship had a greater number, as it was the most important, but still it was unlikely that much effort had been expended on the crew quarters. And the Andromedans’ overall perspective was of interest, also; they were most concerned with the center-galaxy segments like Knyfh and Lodo, and not with the Fringe segments like Qaval and Thousandstar—and Etamin. It put her own effort into perspective, such as it was. Tiala had provided a more than responsive answer.
If the Andromedan effort of a thousand years earlier had been organized like this, the hero Flint of Outworld had foiled it by pure luck! How could a Stone Age barbarian have halted the ongoing program of a major galaxy? But by the same token, how could an old female neuter isolated in an officerless ship in space even hope to…?
I wish I had known you, Flint! she thought. For, in addition to his other capabilities, he was supposed to have had a Kirlian intensity of over two hundred, the only other such rating in this galaxy before her own. High-Kirlian entities were doomed to be lonely.
But she had to get on to the second question. “What is the specific locale of the secret of involuntary transfer hosting?”
“I’m not sure. But I think it is Planet £ of Sphere Dash. It is a hotbed of Ancient sites, good ones, regarded as shrines to Aposiopesis. Certainly it is somewhere in that Sphere, and that is where they’ve set their closest guard, though it is not one of the advanced Dash worlds. It is said to be quite primitive, actually, though the Dash have occupied it for millennia. Now they have a fleet like this one hovering near it.”
Planet £ of Sphere Dash in Andromeda. If only the Milky Way could transfer an agent there, undetected. Obviously no frontal approach could succeed.
Melody shook her human head. The task was virtually impossible—but it would have to be attempted. She hardly envied the entity assigned to it!
Now for the third question. Too bad the Tarot had not granted her fifteen questions, but it must have had its reason. Three of Energy—meaning, in the old fashion, strength, virtue, communication, and cooperation. Three of Wands. How did that apply to this situation? She was cooperating with Tiala to gain information for her galaxy that would strengthen it, but there seemed to be little virtue in it without stretching the implications.
Virtue—the missing element. Was that the hint? Should the third question relate to that?
Tiala looked at her expectantly. The aural indication showed increasing stress. Something was preying on her; she was afraid of that third question. That meant there was something vital, something Melody should not miss. What was it?
She couldn’t stall; that was not fair play. She had to make her move—right or wrong. Virtue or vice. Maybe…
“What have I overlooked?” Melody asked.
The aural indicator went wild. “How can I know what—?” Tiala demanded, terrified.
Hot on the trail! “That is a nonresponsive remark. You know something I should know. There was no restriction on the type of question I could ask. You are aware of something vital to my interest. Tell me that thing.” It could be that this would amount to two questions: the nature of the subject, and the specific information; she would just have to hope Tiala wouldn’t think of this.
“I—can’t!” Tiala cried.
Melody frowned, not liking this but knowing she had to do it. She knew Skot was squirming; she was putting pressure on Tiala as she had put pressure on him, once. “You can. Only the manner of the telling is in doubt.”
But Tiala only shook her head.
“You are aware that this constitutes reneging?” Melody demanded, forcing a fierceness she did not feel. Why did there have to be so much brutality to adventure? “You know the alternative.”
The girl nodded mutely. Tears were on her cheeks. Oh, my sister of aura, why must this be? What sense is there in it? But Melody steeled herself. How could she afford to be moved by affinity or pity in the face of the savagery of Andromeda’s thrust into the Milky Way?
She glanced first at Llume, then at Skot. “It seems I must after all make siege against the aura of Tiala of Slash. Opinions?”
<
br /> “There is something she knows,” Skot said reluctantly. “If you’re sure it’s safe for you…”
“We all do what is necessary,” Llume said with unusual grimness for her. As an even closer sister of aura, she was highly sensitive to the implications.
Melody’s course was clear. Yet she was uneasy. If the Tarot were guiding her to this, why hadn’t it offered a face of the Suit of Aura? This was surely a matter of transfer, covered by that suit. Instead the Tarot had shown her Energy, the Andromedan suit. She was about to chain another lady—and this one really was Andromedan. Why should the auspices be dubious?
More correctly, why should she think they were dubious? The card had to be exactly right for what the Tarot had to say. The focus was on Andromeda, not on aura; aura was merely the means to the information. Melody would have her answer, though she might not like it.
She set the machine for the process of overwhelming. Tiala did not move or protest. Why should this entity of Slash refuse to tell what she knew when it would immediately be extracted from her mind anyway, at far greater cost? She had only to give one answer via the Lot of *, and she would be released, with her galaxy no worse off than it would be via the aural overwhelming technique. For Tiala to balk now did not seem to make sense; she well knew Melody was not bluffing about her ability to get the information. Melody was the one entity in this galaxy capable of accomplishing this.
Melody realized that she had a Tarot-type riddle to deal with. Like the pun for dilettantes: What has five suits but exposes everything? The Cluster Tarot deck, of course. The symbols and meanings were present; she had only to interpret them properly. What pattern fit this seeming irrationality? What was there about this Lot of *?
It had to be that the unknown question related in some way to this Lot of *, so that the revelation would somehow nullify it. Was this another trap? Yet what type of trap could it be, that a lie would not have fostered better than this balk? Tiala obviously did not want to have her aura overwhelmed; her readings showed her terror of it. Why this suicidal course?
Then, from somewhere beneath full consciousness, Melody began to get a notion. She could not quite bring it to the surface, but it was appalling. In fact, it was a thing she very much preferred not to know.
Melody reset the machine and activated it. Tiala slumped.
“You sent her away?” Llume inquired, surprised.
“Yes. We have other business to attend to.”
“But she had not answered the question!” Skot said.
“She answered in her fashion.” Melody pondered momentarily. “Now I must transfer myself to Imperial Outworld to give warning.”
“What?” Yael said, astounded.
Melody looked at Skot. “You will have to run the ship. You and Llume.”
“I can’t run this ship!” Skot protested.
“Well, I certainly can’t!” Melody retorted. “I know nothing of the operations of either ship or fleet. And Llume…” Again she paused. She liked Llume a great deal, but… “Why don’t you transfer to Outworld, Skot? We girls can take care of the crew until help comes.”
Yael was screaming voicelessly. “You know Outworld is a death trap! You can’t send him there!”
“Yes, that might be better,” Skot agreed. “There is something about this I don’t understand, but—” The ship shook.
Llume put her ball to the deck. “That resembles a meteor impact!”
“Odds are against it,” Skot said. “Meteors strike the ship all the time, but it is extremely rare for one to be big enough to be felt like that. I think someone’s firing on us!”
“The hostages!” Melody said. “They have taken over another ship and attacked us! We have no officer in the control room to keep track.”
“We’d better check it out right now,” Skot said. “My report to Outworld would be no good if you got blown out of space.”
“Come on, Slammer,” Melody said. “We have business.”
Llume’s assessment had been close, and so had Skot’s. The command room’s view-globe showed the glowing hulk of a Polarian Disk ship. It had been blown up, and shrapnel fragments were spreading through space. One of them had struck the Ace of Swords, but caused only slight damage.
“The hostages must have tried to take over that ship, and been balked the hard way,” Melody said. “It could have happened here.”
The message-input was alive. Calls were on tap from several other ships of the fleet. “This is the flagship,” Skot said. “The nerve-center of the fleet. The other ship captains need directives.”
“But our captain is nonfunctional,” Llume pointed out.
“If this fleet loses its central organization, it will be a setup for hostage takeover,” Skot said. “If we don’t handle it, a hostage ship will.”
“In fact,” Llume said, “this ship was slated to handle it—as a hostage-command.”
“Yes,” Melody agreed, seeing it. Dash of Andromeda, the highest aura of the hostage force, operating in the name of Imperial Outworld, had in fact been forwarding the interests of Galaxy Andromeda. But for her freak of luck in converting the magnets, Dash would now be in control. “We have to conceal what happened—not only from the legitimate officers of the fleet, but from the hostages—until we have identified and nullified those four hundred Andromedans.”
“But if the legitimate officers don’t catch on to our state here, the hostages will,” Skot pointed out. “Either way, disaster.”
Melody walked around the room. She had discovered that muscular exertion facilitated the operation of the human brain, apparently by pumping more fresh blood-fluid into it. “I can’t bluff either group. I’m no space entity or military entity, just a visiting non-Solarian civilian. Skot…”
He shook his head. “I’m only 03. I was never privy to command decisions, and never a hostage. I’d flub it, both counts.”
Melody faced Llume. “But you’re 04, and you have associated with all the officers, and substituted for most of them at one time or another. You know their jobs about as well as they do. And you helped me run down the hostages; you know where they’re from, how they react. You could bluff other hostages—for a while; at least until we have a better idea of where we stand.”
Llume glanced at the Polarian hulk in the globe again. Her Polarian host-state had to affect her reaction. “Yes… I could… for a while.”
“Then you handle communications. Tell them Captain Boyd is occupied with pressing internal problems—the hostages will know why you can’t mention it on the fleet net—so you are handling coordinations. Keep the ships reassured; don’t let anyone panic. Meanwhile, Skot and I will try to get one of the real officers into operative condition. I know it is not good for the health of an ex-hostage, but this is an overriding emergency. With luck, in a couple of hours we’ll have Boyd or someone else able to put up at least the semblance of competency. We must keep up appearances.”
Llume glowed briefly, knowing that was a futile hope. The officers would hardly be ready that soon. But she had the grace not to say so. “I will try to coordinate,” she agreed. “The secret must be kept.”
“Come on, Slammer,” Melody said. “We have to revive your master.” And she led Skot of Kade away too.
But she didn’t go to the infirmary. She went back to the transfer unit and set it for her own aura.
“I don’t understand,” Skot said. “If you go to Outworld now, the fleet—I thought we had agreed that I—”
“Not to Outworld. The hostages have taken over the key positions there. I never intended to ship you there, either.”
“But this unit won’t reach farther—” He paused. “You’re not going after the Andromedans we sent to the sunside mines!”
She shuddered. “No—they’d crucify me, literally!” She took his hand. “Skot of Kade, I need your opinion. My aura is supposed to be able, with the aid of special equipment, to overwhelm a hostage of one-quarter my own intensity. Do you think this is possible at a short
distance as well as in close proximity?”
“I’m no transfer expert. But I don’t see why not. Transfer is essentially a long-distance mechanism, and the Andromedans did it all the way from their galaxy, a million light years away. But what relevance—”
“You see, I wouldn’t want to make a hostage of one of our own people, and damage her as the Andromedans did. But I wouldn’t have such scruples about an already existent hostage. That host has already been hurt, and the Andromedan deserves no better.”
Skot gaped. “Yael, you’re not thinking of—”
“I am Melody of Mintaka. No need to conceal it anymore. Skot, someone has to identify and deal with the hostages on the other ships. We can’t let those ships fall into enemy hands.”
“If I transfer to Outworld, maybe I can—”
“No! That would only give us away. I need you here. I’m going to transfer to some of the other ships, but I don’t want anyone else to know. My host, the real Yael of Dragon, will conceal my absence, but you will have to help her, because she knows no more about space than I do. If she makes a slip, your ingenuity will be needed.”
Skot shook his head. “Llume’s the only one who might catch on, and we don’t need to worry about—”
Melody put her hand on his arm, turning him about to face her. “I don’t want Llume to know. It could only distract her at a very inopportune time.”
Skot looked down. “Oh. Yes. Of course.” Then he looked into her eyes and she knew she had a conquest if she wanted it. “Just how dangerous is this mission?”
“No worse than my mission on this ship.”
“Thanks for the reassurance,” he said wryly. “You’re limping, bruised, and bloodshot, lucky to be alive. You look like a worn-out witch. And you say—”
Melody reached up to kiss him. “The physical violence has not affected my aura. This is the only transfer unit in the Fleet, so I will have to return in another host. Will you recognize me as a lovely Polarian?”
He had to smile. “No problem,” he said, letting her go after a slight hesitation. “I’ll know your aura. But we’ll need a code word when you come in by shuttle. I can handle that part of it; ship-to-shuttle is on a different beam, not part of the fleet net, and Llume won’t even know about it.”
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