"But Skot—what—?"
"He is gone," Slammer said. "His ship was blasted. This is an empty host."
Add Skot of Kade to the growing list of entities to mourn! If only he hadn't insisted on going on that mission....
"We've been getting to know each other," March said. "Slammer's a nice guy; I never realized how smart the magnets were. But just now all hell broke loose. The hostages keeled over, then you came out. Who are you, really?"
"The anti-hostage mechanism!" Melody exclaimed. "It worked!"
Quickly Melody explained about his effort at the Ancient site in Andromeda. "Transfer is instant," he concluded. "And so is this, it seems. I animated this host because the original personality is gone, so there is no host-mind to preempt it, and I am male, now." He explained about that as he activated the cell-release.
March shook his head in amazement. "I thought meeting a magnet in human form was the limit; now I have to get used to a beautiful girl in male-captain form."
"I never was a beautiful girl," Melody said. "That was merely my host, Yael of Dragon."
March nodded thoughtfully. "I'd like to know—her." Then he remembered something. "What was the Ancient secret? Why did they suicide, and why were you so horrified, even after three million years?"
"Aposiopesis," Melody said succinctly.
"What does that mean?"
"I will never tell," Melody said with absolute seriousness. "If the truth were known, much of the drive of our own contemporary civilization would dissipate. We might, like them, give up. I don't think we would, but we might. I refuse to gamble on it—and I doubt Dash Boyd will gamble either." Then he returned to the business at hand. "Admiral Hammer and all the other hostages must have been nullified; that's why they collapsed. Their host-minds may have taken over, but it's too soon to—you know how the hostages suppress their hosts, even destroying them...."
"Then we'd better get control of this ship fast," March said. "Because pretty soon those hostages may be back on their wheels, if their hosts are really dead or dying.
We'd better herd them into these cells until we're sure."
"Yes," Melody agreed.
But already the Sador hosts were moving. A large one rolled up. Melody reached for a weapon, but found he had none, so waited alertly.
"I am Rollo of Sador," he said formally. "Former Rotary Officer of this ship. I now control the aura of Hammer of ::, though I am very weak."
Could he believe him? It might be that Hammer was pretending to have succumbed. But that would have been pointless. If he retained control, he should act to assert control of the ship. It was possible that the :: had not repressed his host-aura as viciously as some, so that Rollo remained sane. If so, Hammer was not only competent, but pretty decent for an Andromedan. Melody decided that the risk was worthwhile. Apparently the human auras had faded out only after the oppressive Andromedan auras had departed, as though beaten into such dependency they were helpless without alien support. But there was a difference between individuals, and there could, indeed, be native host-personalities to take over. Those who were mad would now plunge their erstwhile masters into hell; those who had been treated more kindly would respond in kind.
He did not know what a Rotary Officer was in Sadorian terms, but since Sador was a circular culture like Polaris it seemed appropriate. It was probably equivalent to Captain.
"I am Melody of Mintaka, temporary Admiral of the Etamin fleet," he replied. "I believe we have won the war by recovering all hostages. But we shall have to take stock and reorganize."
"My guest aura informs me that there is one you will wish to meet," Rollo said. "A companion of the Milk of Way. Please wheel along this vector."
Melody hesitated again, but decided to go along. "Free all prisoners and ascertain their identities," he told March. "See if you can locate Slammer's natural body. Be alert."
March nodded. "Yes, sir." He knew as well as Melody did that the situation remained highly flexible; some hostages might remain in power. But due care should suffice.
Melody was sure that a similar confusion existed all over the Milky Way galaxy as the counterhostage impulse took effect. But out of this chaos would emerge victory, the salvation of his galaxy. Again he marveled: What powers the Ancients had, yet how carefully guarded!
Melody accompanied the Sador to another level of the ship. Here, alone in a cell, sat a breathtakingly lovely woman in a simple, ragged dress. Her hair was long and brown, her features even, and her body lithe yet full-fleshed. There were some bruises on her, as if she had suffered a beating in the past few days, and one leg was bandaged. But these imperfections seemed only to enhance the general splendor of her person. Melody had never seen such beauty in a Solarian female before, and it did something to him. He experienced a nascent urgency.
Rollo's wheel whirred. "The situation has changed," he said. "Here is a friend."
The girl looked up, her glance cold. "Forget it, Hammer," she snapped. "Dash and I aren't on the same side any more. You know that."
Melody came close to the cell-screen. His aura interacted with that of the prisoner. The two auras were amazingly similar. "Llume!" he exclaimed. "In Yael's body!"
Startled, the girl jumped to her feet, her breasts bouncing. God of Hosts! Melody thought. Every motion she makes—I wish I could take her and— "That aura! So like my own, but so strong—impossible!"
"I depart," Rollo whirred discreetly. "The cell is open."
"You can't govern Yael's body," Melody said. "The hostage reversal—"
"Hammer transferred me," Llume said. "He was very smart about neutralizing potential troublemakers without further killing. But I did not dominate the host. I have had enough of hostaging." She paused, then spoke again, in a different manner. "That's right. Llume refused to take over, but her aura was so like Melody's—maybe not her aura, because I can't feel aura, really, but anyway there was something about her—well, I told her to go ahead and use my body. It hardly made any difference, here in jail with all our friends dead."
"Yael," Melody said. "Don't you know me?"
The girl squinted. "Something Llume's thinking... you're not Dash... someone else, like Flint of Outworld...."
Melody laughed explosively, male-fashion. "Yes, very like Flint of Outworld—now! I am Melody."
The pretty mouth dropped open. "You couldn't be!" Then: "Unless—"
"Yes. I mated in Andromeda, and then had the Ancients reverse the hostaging. Shall I remind you about the dinosaur you tried to tame as a child, or the Four Swords poem that—"
"Nobody knows that!" Yael exclaimed.
Melody smiled, opened the cell, and spread his arms. Yael hesitated, evidently listening to what Llume was telling her. Then her eyes teared. She stepped forward and fell into his embrace.
Melody became acutely aware of the formidable physical female charms Yael possessed, and began to comprehend what had never been quite clear before. He had, in his female aspect, employed those charms in a mercenary manner, not really understanding why they created the response they did. Now, with those full soft breasts touching him, that slender, exquisitely contoured torso against him—this was not a game! The response, the sheer need—he wanted to grasp, hold, squeeze, kiss, penetrate. Those smooth round legs, that shaped posterior....
But there was something else. More than the merely physical, compelling as that was. "Do you know why I never had much interest in mating, despite inhabiting a body so well designed for it?" he asked them. "I mean, apart from the Mintakan complication, and my age, and the war...."
"Do you know why I defected to your side?" Llume asked in return.
"For a pair of bright entities, you two are pretty dumb," Yael said. "You always were in love with each other, but you couldn't admit it because you were both female, and two different species at that."
Melody and Llume looked at each other, realizing it was true. "I was also in love with you, Yael," Melody said. "That was even more complicated."
&nbs
p; The lovely eyes returned her gaze. "Yes...."
"The situation has changed," Melody said, bending to kiss them.
Epilogue
The counterhostage measure was effective. The Andromedan thrust collapsed. Because the governing Spheres of that galaxy depended heavily on hostaging, for a time there was anarchy. No transfer aura could dominate a host; it could only visit. If a voluntary host objected to any measure taken by its transfer entity, the will of the host prevailed.
Gradually a new philosophy of transfer evolved, in which hosts participated equally in all activities. Government in both galaxies became more responsive to the will of lesser auras. In fact, the archaic concept of "democracy" had to be revived and applied. The Spherical governments were replaced by responsive administrations who promised never again to practice or tolerate energy theft.
Melody of Mintaka never told the secret of the Ancients, and neither did his erstwhile lover of Dash. The fabulous site of Planet £ remained sealed. Melody, after some pleasant dalliance with his friends Llume and Yael, retired to his own aged body and his own Sphere. He contemplated his Tarot, finding new insights there, until he expired shortly thereafter. He seemed satisfied, and not much concerned with the fact that his name had already been entered in the annals of two galaxies, parallel to those of Flint of Outworld, Brother Paul of Tarot, and other historic figures in the folklore of cluster civilization.
In Galaxy Andromeda, Melody was honored in his female form, represented in the Queen of Energy or Thirteen of Wands card of Tarot. But it was mooted privately that the name of the lovely chained lady was Andromeda, as the Solarian mythology had said all along, and that the name of the sea monster was Melody.
The host-entity, Yael of Dragon, was retired with honor and granted a Society of Hosts pension. The young guard who had discovered the first hostage of Outworld, March (the name, originated as a code, but he elected to retain it), was feted regally and offered anything in the Segment he might desire. He chose Yael. They married and carved out a pleasant ranch in back-vine Outworld, and their children had a pet dinosaur.
Slammer the magnet recovered his body and son. The magnets were granted civilized status, and developed a considerable fleet of spaceships, as they were well suited to economical space travel, requiring neither atmosphere nor gravity on any regular basis. In due course Sphere Magnet joined Segment Etamin, and contributed its first representative to Segment government: an entity by the name of Beanball.
Galaxy Andromeda, having twice erred by casting lascivious desires on the energy of her neighbor, was now chained. For a thousand Solarian years she was contemptuously reviled by sapient species elsewhere in the galactic cluster. The cultures of Spheres * — / :: and oo stagnated, and not merely at their regressive Fringes. Their need for massive new energy had been critical, and remained so; civilization could not be maintained at its prior level.
But the mystery of the Ancients remained hidden. Slowly, inevitably, the level of civilization in the cluster declined, for the available energy was being depleted. It seemed that modern sapients were doomed never to approach the technological level of the Ancients, let alone to comprehend the secret of the Ancients' demise.
Suddenly, the greatest threat of all: the Space Amoeba. It threatened to engulf the entire cluster. There was only one possible way to oppose it: to achieve the immediate breakthrough of complete Ancient science. Under this imperative, a new figure appeared in Cluster history.
This was an entity of lowly, oppressed Sphere Slash of Andromeda, who sought to fulfill the plea of his ancestral kin Llume that Sphere slash redeem its honor. He possessed the third and greatest of the phenomenal auras.
His Kirlian rating was 236, and in certain respects his adventure was to be the most remarkable of the three. He was known colloquially by his twin professions: Herald the Healer.
His thrust into history was the Kirlian Quest.
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