The Metal Maiden Collection

by Piers Anthony

  The Lamb sniffed the plant, as he had before by the sea. And the plant responded by lifting her stalk up slightly to meet his nose. Not to suck his blood; Elasa had taken care of that problem. Simply to greet him.

  And that was interesting. Mona knew the stalk could be mobile; it had to be for sucking blood from visiting creatures. But seeing it respond to Bunky surprised her. Were they becoming friends? Elasa had harvested the plant, but Elasa was gone. The Lamb was the next creature she had met. Maybe that familiarity, buttressed by the Lamb’s telepathy, reassured her. Assuming an unconscious plant could be reassured.

  Unconscious? Then how did the sexy ladies talk to the men? The sexy men to the women? Mona had heard them talking to Elasa. Plants might not have natural consciousness, but these ones, tuning in to the minds of their prey, must have borrowed consciousness at that time. Their telepathy could lend them temporary consciousness. Maybe even temporary intelligence.

  Bunky had telepathy. Venus had telepathy. Together they should be able to communicate more fully than would otherwise be possible. That was the start.

  Mona put her face down beside the Lamb’s head and the plant. “Help me, Bunky,” she said. Then to the plant: “Hello Venus,” she said, again speaking to properly frame her thoughts. “I am Mona. I will take care of you. Do you read me?”

  The stem twisted, orienting on her. Then the image of a young woman formed, the virginal girl Brian had described. “Hello Mona. Are you my friend?”

  Mona suppressed her intense excitement at the response, lest it blow apart the rapport. “I am your friend,” she agreed, knowing that with that utterance it became so. She had feared and loathed the vampire plants, but she had promised Elasa and she was committed.

  “Please, my roots are hot. I am suffering.”

  “Readily fixed,” Mona said. She went to fetch a wooden tub, poured some water in it, then set the pot in that water.

  “Thank you. That feels so much better.”

  “Now I will let you rest, Venus. We will talk again later.”

  The image faded, replaced by the ball of mist. The plant had disengaged.

  Mona hugged Bunky. “You made it possible,” she said, kissing his furry ear. Then she went to the bed and lay down, pondering what had just happened.

  The Lamb had telepathy. It did not generally show, because it applied mainly to specific threats to be avoided or nullified, but it was there. The Plant had telepathy, generally used to draw images from the mind of prey and lure it in for a feeding. Again, not exactly what human beings thought of as telepathy, consisting of mental phone connections and sharing of emotions. But when the telepathy of Plant and Lamb got together, in the presence of Mona’s human mind, they merged and included her in the circuit. They had borrowed her intellect and memory to communicate with her in her own fashion. Maybe Venus had not really spoken of friendship and roots, but Mona’s mind had interpreted the signals and enabled her to understand. It would do. It was a significant breakthrough.

  Could this three way connection also explore precognition? That would be the next thing to try.

  She must have slept, because she woke an hour later. She went about normal household business, avoiding interactions with Lamb and Plant because she wasn’t sure she was ready to take them further. But before long she surrendered and got back into it.

  “Bunky, I want to learn about precognition,” she said as she stroked the Lamb. “I think joint communion with you and Venus may help. Are you willing to work with me?”

  Bunky bleated yes. Actually he was amenable to almost anything she had in mind, except perhaps for baths.

  They got together with the plant, which was looking better now. Small leaves were forming at the base of the central stalk. As she gazed at it, mist formed around it, concealing it.

  They got close to the Plant. “Venus, I want to work with Bunky. Will you help?”

  The virginal girl formed. “Yes. I like your ambiance.”

  “And I like yours,” Mona agreed. “You’re very pretty.”

  The Venus-girl actually blushed. “Thank you.”

  Mona suppressed thoughts on how the girl was acting exactly as Mona might imagine her to act. What counted was the rapport. “You have telepathic projection. You make illusions from the minds of creatures close to you. Bunky has precognition. He knows what is about to happen. I want to connect with his mind so that I can see what is about to happen. With your help maybe I can do it.”

  “That’s nice.” Evidently precognition was beyond the plant’s ability to comprehend. And of course her thought was complicated.

  “The close mind connection should do. Help me see the near future through Bunky’s mind.” Could this possibly work?

  Then Mona had a memory of herself walking outside the house, and stubbing her toe painfully on an unnoticed rock. “Oh!” she exclaimed, wincing.

  The memory faded. But it was odd, because Mona had not stubbed her toe since she had exchanged to Elen’s body. It was a false memory.

  The Lamb glanced at her. He bleated. “Yet.”

  Oh? Could it be? Mona stood, walked outside, and walked to where she remembered the rock. There it was by the edge of the path. She could readily have struck it with her foot had she not been looking. But of course she had been looking, and as readily avoided it. So it was no valid precognition.

  Then she paused as a thought fought its way through her dismissal. She had been looking because she had been warned. She had remembered it happening, and avoided the toe-stub. It was valid precognition.

  She stood in the path, working it out. She had assumed that precognition applied only to immutable events, like storms, not ones that could be changed. That was wrong. It applied also to things that could be changed. That was what made it so valuable. The fact that she had not stubbed her toe did not invalidate the precog, it validated it. It made it supremely useful.

  She returned to the house, where Lamb and Plant waited. “It worked!” she exclaimed.

  The girl formed. It seemed Venus did not project that illusion unless she had reason; it probably required energy. “You saw it happen. You changed it.”

  “Let’s do another!”

  Mona practiced, looking ahead into her own immediate future, seeing things happen, then changed them with a mere thought of negation. She might cross the room, but the decision not to cross abolished it. She might open a window, or not. The difference between such conjectures was that she realized they were real actions, rather than intentions, until her decisions nullified them. She was actually seeing the future. It would have been easy to miss or dismiss, but for the toe-stub.

  Then she saw Brian returning home. He had been helping with the turnip crop. She saw herself run out to kiss him. She negated that with a thought, then changed her mind, and as he arrived, she kissed him.

  “What’s the occasion?” he asked, surprised.

  “I have precognition!” Then she explained it in a rush, and demonstrated it by calling out things he was about to do, or not to do; when in the mode she could see his near future too.

  “So I’m making it with Venus,” she concluded. “She’s helping me with both telepathy and precognition, by adding her telepathy to Bunky’s. I am learning how to use mutable precognition: things that can be changed by their own prediction. It’s not paradoxical, just not normally noticeable.”

  “How can you notice something that doesn’t happen?” he agreed.

  Mona continued to work with Bunky and Venus. Not only did she become increasingly adept at seeing the near future, she got a hint of the far future. “There is reason to send Venus to Earth,” she said. “To be with Elasa. I have not been able to fathom what it is, but it is essential.”

  “That is what she wants,” Brian agreed.

  Next day she tried reaching further into the near future, and learned of a challenge. “There’s a complication about sending Venus to Earth by spaceship. It can be done, but not immediately.”

  “The ship leaves
in a week.”

  “That’s the thing,” she insisted. “It doesn’t.”

  “It does,” he said. “Those servicing missions are regular as clockwork.”

  “Not this time. I must go see Mike. After I do some spot research on him.”

  She did, taking Bunky and Venus along. Her legal training enabled her to zero rapidly in on the essentials, the details others might miss, and the collaboration of Lamb and Plant facilitated it.

  Mike greeted her warmly; Elasa’s visit had impressed him.

  “I need another favor,” she said. “Off the record. And I believe I can offer one in return.”

  “Off the record?”

  “This must not be bruited about. In fact it may be totally secret.”

  “I am not in a position to handle secrecy.”

  “You may agree when you know more.”

  He considered. “I will undertake to maintain your privacy, but not to compromise my integrity. If I do not like what you tell me, I will decline to assist you, without advertising why.”

  She knew him for an honest man. “That will do.”

  “Speak.”

  “I need to ship this potted plant to Earth. Her name is Venus, she’s a vampire, and she belongs to Elasa.”

  “That’s irregular. Earth freely sends plants and animals to Jones, but is restrictive about any traveling the other direction. It’s a question of potential contamination. Vampires are out.”

  “Exactly. But I promised Elasa. I will need your assistance to manage it.”

  “Mona, you are asking more than a favor. You are asking me to violate regulations.”

  “I am,” she agreed. “It is a considerable favor. Therefore I am offering a considerable favor in return.”

  He shook his head. “I am not sure I wish to continue this conversation.”

  “Let me show you some of what is at stake,” Mona said earnestly. “We are not dealing with ordinary matters. We are dealing with telepathy and precognition.”

  He smiled. “Telepathy, perhaps. Precognition? Paradox prevents.”

  “Here is an example of projective telepathy.” She turned to the plant, tuning in as Bunky drew closer, to assist. “Venus, show him.” She focused on what she wanted the plant to do.

  Venus fuzzed. Then the girl appeared, lovely and nude. She eyed Mike. “Hello, handsome.”

  “This is an impressive illusion,” he said.

  Mona almost lost her concentration. She saw the girl! But quickly she reasoned it out: Venus was a young plant, and had not yet learned to differentiate projections simultaneously the way the fully mature vampires did. They did not want women interfering with the fascination of the men, so sent innocuous mist to the women. That way the women did not take the threat seriously, thinking the men were merely imagining it. Until the men had already been tapped. Venus had been manifesting to Mona as a girl all along; Mona had somehow not realized that this was unusual until this moment, when the vamp was tempting a man.

  Mona clamped down on her reverie. “If you encountered Venus in the wild, she would lure you into sex, and suck your blood. She is a vampire.”

  He laughed. “Superstition.”

  “No. Ask her.”

  He gazed at the plant. “True, Venus?”

  “Oh, yes,” Venus replied. “If I was hungry. I would issue my pheromones, like this, and proffer you my body, like this.” She spread her arms and legs invitingly, orienting on Mike’s personal preference in women. In fact she assumed the likeness of a pretty village woman Mona recognized. That must be his girlfriend! “Come to me, my honey,” she breathed, inhaling.

  “Enough!” Mike rapped, clearly shaken.

  Venus fuzzed into mist.

  “You have felt her power,” Mona said. “Because she is tame, it is for demonstration only. Elasa is a machine; she can not be affected. Venus belongs with her. It is essential that Venus be with her, because there will be need of her powers to prevent disaster.”

  “Disaster?” Mike was recovering his equilibrium, but his skin was flushed. Now he knew that Mona had not been fooling about the plant, and might not be fooling about the need.

  “I am at present unable to grasp its precise nature,” Mona said. “But the sheep have not been wrong before, and I trust them. How a vampire plant relates I don’t know. But I must get Venus to earth.”

  “I am not at all sure of this connection.” He was too polite to call her a liar.

  “Look at the Lamb,” Mona said. “We will try to share his premonition with you.”

  Mike looked. Mona and Bunky explored the premonition that should in time become precognition. At present it was merely a nebulous foreboding, ill defined. But there was no doubt about the danger. Something horrendous was looming.

  “I am inclined to believe you,” Mike said. “I know the sheep are capable of remarkable things, and I appreciate that you believe there is a menace. Let’s assume for the sake of discussion that I will help you. What possible return favor can you offer that could match the serious risk to my career?”

  “You are having an affair with a native woman.”

  “This is a private matter. Port liaisons are within protocol.”

  “They are,” she agreed. “As are exchange liaisons, such as mine. I am not suggesting anything untoward. You like her very well, and she likes you. You would marry her, except that her parents are adamant against it.”

  “You have done your homework,” he agreed tightly.

  Mona made a thin smile. “I am a lawyer. I do do my homework. But I am not seeking to embarrass you or threaten you. I am merely setting the stage. I believe I can facilitate your marriage to her.”

  “You intrigue me in more than one manner. But it is impossible. The ship departs in a week, and by the time I am able to return, more than a year hence, my girl will have been coercively married elsewhere. This is not Earth; the colonists have this power over their children. Both of us know this, and deeply regret it, but are helpless.”

  “The ship will not depart in a week,” Mona said firmly. “There will be a four month delay. In that time you can get her pregnant, thus forcing the acquiescence of her family. In fact they will insist that you marry her and remove her from the planet, sparing them further embarrassment.”

  “That would be unethical!”

  “No more so than parents who violate their daughter’s preference in marriage, because they think her prior boyfriend’s prospects for promotion are better. It’s a standard ploy.” She glanced down at her swelling belly. “It’s how my host got her marriage to an Earth man.”

  He decided not to argue that point. “In any event, it’s academic. I’ll be gone in a week.”

  “I will make you a deal based on a wager,” Mona said evenly. “If your ship departs on schedule, you win, and you will lose your girlfriend and not take any plant to Earth. If your ship discovers itself indefinitely delayed—the officials will not know the duration will be four months—you technically lose. You will win your girlfriend and take her and the plant to Earth. The plant will count as an item of her personal baggage, so will not be technically in violation of protocol. There will be no mention of any supposed vampire aspect. Who would believe it anyway?”

  Mike stared at her. “This smells of a Faustian bargain. If I win, I lose; if I lose, I win.”

  “One you can afford to make, as you do not believe in precognition.”

  He shook his head, bemused. “Never argue legalities with a lawyer!”

  “Never,” she agreed, smiling.

  “All right, dammit! I will make that wager.”

  “Thank you.” She kissed him on the cheek and departed.

  The time for the ship’s departure came. It did not depart. It seemed there was some kind of bureaucratic turf war on Earth, with the Colony budget as hostage; until it was resolved, no ship could take off. Mona was sure that back on Earth Shep was fighting for the welfare of Colony Jones, but he did not control its budget.

  She did not
contact Mike. It was best that their prior dialogue remain unremarked. He would honor his end of the deal. With luck, the space authorities would never realize there was a connection between Mike’s marriage and the shipment of a potted plant.

  There was a more immediate matter to take her attention. Bunky was coming up on a month old, and it was time to neuter him, if it was to be done.

  She took the lamb by the horns, as it were. She got together with him and Venus, to facilitate communication. “Bunky, we have a difficult decision to make. As you grow, you will mature. When you become a ram, you will be banished from this area and will have to join the rams on the island. But your lame leg makes that trip dangerous for you by yourself, if it is even possible, and I won’t be here then. It could be a death sentence.”

  “We would drink his blood,” the Venus maiden said. “If he got that far.”

  “There is an alternative,” Mona continued grimly. “You can become a wether. That’s a—a neutered male sheep. It would mean you would never mature, but you could stay here; the ewes would not banish you.”

  “I want to stay with you,” Bunky said in bleats. He could formulate words now, with Venus’s help.

  “That’s another thing. When my six months is done, I will exchange back to Earth, this time to stay, at least for six months. You could exchange with me, to your Earth host. But you would still have to be neutered, or you would have no viable host to return to.” Mona paused, choking up. “I can’t make this decision for you. I want you to look ahead along your own life, and decide what is your best path.”