Chaining the Lady

10. Lot of *

*notice: trouble in segment etamin*

—details?—

*discovery and capture of dash command by enemy*

—(chagrin!) who is backup command there?—

*slash, then quadpoint*

—conceal the news we cannot risk action yet—

*council will not favor further delay without explanation*

—we must gain advantage galaxy-wide! the situation in segment knyfh is not yet secure, and knyfh is more vital to our thrust than etamin action in etamin now will prejudice that more serious encounter perhaps the backup command in etamin can still salvage the aura we require this has more importance than may be apparent—

*under protest, I yield*

—appreciation, ast you always were an understanding entity I suppose the fact that your kind has five sexes makes you especially diplomatic—

*to call our situation five sexes is not quite correct*

—regrets I was trying to—

*actually, I regard this as an aspect of the lot of ast*

—yes, I am aware of that convention it is a good one, used in many spheres—

Compliments on a masterstroke of strategy, the Captain’s note read. Dash was unable to speak because of the mess Skot’s laser had made of his mouth. He was missing two front teeth, part of his lower lip, and a section of his tongue; at the moment he was not handsome. We thought the magnets were incorruptible.

“They are,” Melody said. “They remain loyal to their galaxy.” She kept her voice firm, not wanting him to know what the sight of his grotesque injury did to her. “Please step into the transfer unit.”

Without objection, Dash of Andromeda entered the box. He made no plea, no threat; he took his defeat in stride. She was proud of him for that—and dared not show him that, either. She limped over and threw the switch. Her shrapnel wound needed proper attention, and she had a headache and bruises all over her body from the fight with Slammer, but the present task was more important. She could not relax until the flagship was free of hostages.

The indicator on the machine swung down from 176 to 151, and the dominating aural family shifted. The alien aura had gone.

“I hope your new host is in good condition, Dash,” Melody murmured. The Andromedan had not been sent home, of course; this little unit lacked the power for interstellar projection, let alone intergalactic. Melody had oriented it on a backward colony planet circling close to Etamin. She had ascertained from Yael’s mind that there was a prison colony there that operated very hot mines, where presumably a number of desperate entities lost their auras. The Andromedans would not be able to do much in that situation, but would be well cared for until more permanent arrangements could be made.

Now Skot of Kade stepped forward to assist the man out, while Melody fought again to control her emotions. She had done it; she had sent Dash away! She would probably never encounter him again, and that hurt, despite the chance it had given her galaxy. Had love passed her by a second time?

The Captain seemed dazed. “Sir,” Skot said. “You are free now. How do you feel?”

But the Captain slumped, unconscious; Skot barely stopped him from hitting the deck.

“We’d better get a doctor,” Skot said. “Something’s wrong.”

“No,” Melody said firmly. “Transfer is harmless to the host. It’s probably just the sudden release, and the shock of his physical injury. The only available doctors are in the lower ship, and we can’t afford to advertise to the crew what has happened here. We can’t even notify Imperial Outworld, because the hostages there could intercept the message and cause trouble for us. As far as Outworld is concerned, this ship is and always was completely loyal—and as far as Andromeda is concerned, it remains secretly hostage.”

“More hostages?” Llume inquired. Skot had survived by keeping his laser trained on Captain Dash, thus slowing the organization of the pursuit of Melody, until Melody’s victory had relieved him. But Llume’s unscathed escape seemed like an act of the God of Hosts; it had surprised and gratified Melody. She liked Llume, and was glad that the magnets had not been assigned to kill her.

“Bound to be more hostages, in this ship and in the fleet. We can’t possibly run every crewman through this machine. We’ll just have to let them function as they are. So long as they don’t know the situation in the officers’ section, they probably won’t be any trouble. It is a necessary and I think reasonable gamble.”

They ran the other hostages through the unit. “That may become a lively prison,” Melody remarked. “But I don’t think they’ll be able to get word to their home galaxy in time to change anything here, and they won’t dare risk contacting the hostages of Outworld for fear of exposing them.”

At last Tiala, the original hostage, came up. “No,” Melody said. “You can’t go quite yet. You were the bait that brought me here—and I compliment you on your performance. Because of you, the whole resistance program of Outworld was betrayed. Yet there was substance in your lure: we need the information that is in your mind.”

“No,” Tiala said, backing off. “I don’t know anything.”

“My dear, I cannot afford to trust you,” Melody said. Her recent experiences had made her a good deal more cynical. “The survival of my galaxy may depend on what I can glean from your mind.”

“Please… I will tell you everything I can,” Tiala pleaded. “Only don’t destroy me! Let me go with the others.”

“My dear, I am not going to destroy you. I am merely going to make you temporarily hostage, until I have what I require. Then I will return to my present host, and send you after your friends.”

“Don’t you understand?” Tiala cried. “Hostaging damages the host-mind! Look at your Captain and his officers! They can’t function. It will take months for them to recover, and some may die.”

Melody looked around dismayed. “Months?”

“When an aura is forced on an unprepared host it is like rape. Even when the transferee departs, that host is—”

“Months! How can they run this ship?”

“They can’t,” Tiala said. “You’ll have to let them rest and give them rehabilitation treatments until their facilities are restored. If you try to push them, you’ll only hurt them worse. And me… you don’t have hostaging equipment. If you overwhelm my aura, it will be much worse. I may never recover.”

Melody considered. Tiala’s aura, like Llume’s was very much like her own, and that created a natural affinity. She did not want to hurt the Andromedan. “I am not certain I can believe you.”

“Put me under torture! Compulsion drugs! Anything. But don’t destroy my aura!”

Melody was forced to take the girl seriously. As a hostage, she ought to know the effects of hostaging. The Andromedan effort had been more brutal than Melody had chosen to believe, but since these aliens were planning to destroy the entire galaxy, why should they care about the welfare of their hostage hosts? No need to save the mind of a creature who would shortly perish anyway.

“What is the secret of hostaging?” Melody asked.

“I do not know. We were told none of it so that we could never betray it. Even our allied Spheres don’t know the secret.”

“What Sphere does know it?”

“Sphere Dash. They discovered an Ancient site that they call Aposiopesis, one they had missed before, and there it was. There are many very good sites on their Imperial Planet, but they are very hard to penetrate safely. Perhaps Planet Dash was an Ancients’ military base or governing capital. So Dash has the secret, and the Council cooperates, because”—Tiala shrugged—“Andromeda needs the energy.”

“Sphere Dash,” Melody repeated thoughtfully. “It seems I sent the wrong aura away.”

Tiala smiled. “Yes. He is the only one who might know. He really is a captain 07 in Andromeda; had he succeeded here, he would have become an admiral.”

“A dashing captain,” Melody murmured with a brief smile. She could have been an admiral’s mate…

“And I,” Tiala continued. “I would have jumped rank to 06. Now I will settle gladly for my health.”

“Very well. Answer my questions honestly, and I will leave you that.”

“Then I would be traitor to my galaxy, and my Sphere of /.”

Melody glanced at her with annoyance. Did this alien think she could renege? “It seems you must choose between health and loyalty.”

“We have a convention in my Sphere,” Tiala said, and Melody was reminded that Andromeda was not organized into segments. Apparently they did not operate as efficiently as Milky Way species, so could not amalgamate into segments. If they had concentrated on efficient use of energy, instead of theft of it, they would have been better off. Was the entire Andromedan galaxy philosophically defective, that they could not perceive this basic truth?

But now she had, through her drift of thought, missed what Tiala was saying. “Would you restate that, please?” Melody asked.

“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?”

“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.”

“Lot of *,” Melody said, smiling.

He nodded. “Lot of * it is. If I don’t get that word, I’ll treat anything that comes in as a hostile craft. So you make sure you—”

“Don’t worry! I’ve seen how you shoot!”

Melody reviewed the transfer unit procedure with him, and they oriented on the nearest ship—another giant Disk of Polaris. Then she entered the unit.

“Oh, one thing,” Skot said before he activated the mechanism. “Is your host a nice person?”

“You’ll find out!” Melody said, laughing merrily.

11. Mating the Impact

*the other members of the council are becoming restive*

—I am aware of it they lack the patience or perspective—

*their position is comprehensible, dash we have a thoroughly worked-out plan of action, well implemented it requires only overt action at this stage, before too many individuals of the subject galaxy become aware of the hostages among them already our delay seems to be causing regression in segment etamin*

—you are very practical, * I suppose an explanation is in order—

*it would be appreciated*

—when I prayed to aposiopesis, I was granted a revelation, a small share of the nature of ultimate reality it is this: we are very like our sister galaxy—

*that hardly seems relevant*

—it is relevant, ast our leading spheres are very like theirs our / resembles their sword cultures, that the temple of tarot calls the suit of gas, of transformation both cultures employ laser weapons and have the thrust mentality—

*but our slashes roll, while their sword cultures such as the solarians employ frictive propulsion*

—rolling is frictive too but physique is of little significance it is the basic nature that matters our slashes cut enemies to pieces with their knife edges and lasers, and their solarian swords do the same it was that similarity of nature that caused the archcriminal flint of etamin to pervert our highest-kirlian agent, thereby blunting our first effort he was of sol, she of slash had we anticipated that affinity of types we should have modified our policy and prevailed then—

*perhaps so yet the other cultures do not*

—but they do, ast! our dash resembles their wands, even to the physical aspects of deriving from flying creatures, even to the social aspect of utilizing a companion-species beneficially, though I deem our £ superior to their humanoids our ast resemble their disks, quadpoint is like their cups with only the medium of rock exchanged for that of water our duocirc are like their auras being magnetically based—

*naturally all species fall into certain broad functional classifications this has long been known*

—the resemblances are too strong, too fundamental to be coincidence! they are in fact our brother species if we destroy them, how may we answer to aposiopesis? shall we not ourselves be destroyed?—

*yet our advancing civilization depends on this*

—that depends on how we define civilization progress based on the destruction of a kindred culture—

*I think it necessary for you to vacate your leadership the council will not accept your views*

—we must cease this attack against our neighbor we must seek accommodation instead together the galaxies can comprehend aposiopesis is this not clear?—

*I regret it is not*

She stepped guardedly out of the unit. If the hostages were alert, she could find herself in immediate difficulties.

Surprisingly, she was in a human body. And the ship seemed to be identical to the one she had just left. “Melody!” a voice cried. “Or is it—Yael?”

Melody did a doubletake. “Oh, no! It didn’t work!”

“You didn’t go?” Skot asked, looking relieved.

“Let me see. It doesn’t have to mean a malfunction. There has to be a suitable host at the other end. In this case, a female. If there were none aboard the ship, I should… bounce.”

“Oh. Yes, of course. That tells us something.”

“It does. If you have any communication with the Polaris, insist on talking with a female. You will know whether she’s a hostage or not.”

“Maybe we can check them all out that way.”

“No use. With almost four hundred hostages remaining in the fleet we know a good many ships are suspect, and we don’t want to alert them by checking. And it occurs to me there could be a number of female hostages whose auras are over one quarter intensity of mine, so I would not overwhelm them anyway. I have to get to those ships and eliminate the hostages directly. Otherwise the hostage ships won’t hesitate to blast the loyal ships out of space. That may have happened in one case already.” He nodded gravely.

They reoriented on a Cup of Spica, the Four of Cups. Skot activated the unit again. And Melody… Found herself in a battle for her life. It had not occurred to her that her potential host might resist. The transfer to Yael of Dragon had been so simple, but there was a deadly difference between a voluntary and an involuntary host. And that helped explain why the Andromedans destroyed the minds of their hosts: They had to, because the hosts resisted as long as they were able. She was in the body of a Spican Impact, a fin-propelled creature of the deep sea. Spicans were neuter or triple-sexed, depending on one’s viewpoint. There were three fixed physical types, but the sexual role of each was determined by the manner in which a trio came together. Any two could interact without sexual excitation, but the arrival of the third sex acted as a catalyst, and there was immediate and explosive mergeance. More correctly, implosive mergeance.

Melody, as a basically neuter Mintakan, could occupy any Spican host. But the hostage she happened to orient on possessed a female Andromedan aura. So this had to be considered a female form.

But it was a spitfire! It tried to push her out—but of course there was nowhere to go, and its aural intensity was less than a quarter her own. It had prior possession of the host, however, which gave it considerable initial leverage. The battle seemed to be about even.

:: Who? :: the alien female demanded, ramming again.

No concealment necessary or possible, here! “Melody of Mintaka—Galaxy Milky Way.” She let her aura flow around the thrusts, seeking the living heart of the host. This was aura against aura, but in certain respects it resembled a physical battle.

:: Chisel of quadpoint :: the alien said. :: Galaxy Andromeda. Now get out of my host! :: The emphasis was contributed by two more ferocious shocks.

The alien mode of communication was intriguing, distinct from all Milky Way modes Melody knew of. But she had no chance to cogitate on that at the moment. “Sorry, Chisel. You took a host against her will. You must now suffer the same conquest.” And Melody flowed again, enveloping and nullifying the thrusts.

The Impact body spun erratically in the water as now one mind, now the other activated its mechanisms.

Gradually Melody’s superior aura asserted itself. In a pure Kirlian contest, no entity of this galaxy could match her—and probably none of Andromeda either. She was the Kirlian entity, and now she appreciated the translation of her aura into raw power. She infiltrated, permeating Chisel’s lesser aura, nullifying it, reaching ever deeper into the essence of the Spican host.

Breakthrough! Melody found herself within the memory of the Andromedan. For a moment she experienced the state of :: consciousness. She was a quadpoint, moving through the warm deep layers of lithospheric rock. This was the habitable zone of the planet. Far above were layers of frozen ammonia, surmounted by turbulent frigid gases. Sometimes a quake opened a fissure and let in some of that awful gas, a reminder of the hell that was the surface. At other times boiling lava welled up from the nether depths—the opposite hell. It took an alert, resourceful entity to avoid both hazards long enough to reproduce itself. Yet it was these intrusions of gas that provided the pockets necessary for breath, and the hardened lava was the food of subsequent generations. Without both hazards, life within this planet would soon die out. Ironic.

Melody didn’t like this. She was invading another entity’s intimate privacy, committing a kind of rape. Against an unknown enemy, she could do it, but this was becoming a known, understood entity—one who had feelings and comprehensible motives. It hurt to hurt her.

Through the rock, searching for sustenance. It was a pleasure to strike forward with the tongs, spearing into the hard vein, dislodging it, sifting out the nutrient element, imbibing it through the tong-orifice, heaving the refuse sand back to block the passage. To fail to plug the tunnel behind would be a severe breach of manner and potential hazard: open passages were apt conduits for descending surface gas.

Another block of rock came loose, leaving the :: imprint of her chisels: a neat extraction. This was a good vein! But in a way it was also bad, because she would fill herself faster, and have to report to the Imperial Annex for her next tour of duty. There were rumblings of excitement shaking the Galaxy of Andromeda (the name-concept differed from Melody’s, of course, but the identity was clear), but that meant difficult duty, probably transfer duty, for one of her aura. Transfer meant danger, and the occupation of strange, unpleasant hostile bodies. But she really had no choice. Duty to one’s galaxy…

Melody clamped down. The victory was hers. Yet it was too bad, this suppression of sapient, feeling sentience. A rock-boring entity, with pronged multiple-function extensions that speared into solid stone, powdered it, tossed it, and also were walking feet. And intriguing lifestyle, comprehensible. There were probably similar species in the Milky Way galaxy.

Then Melody made contact with the host entity, the Spican Impact, who was in a sorry state. The aural overwhelming involved in hostaging had severely damaged her psyche, and the Andromedan had driven her mercilessly. The suppression had been severe, much harsher than it needed to be. Chisel of quadpoint had taken care to preserve only the technical life of the host aura, so that the advantage of a living host would not be lost. Health had been superfluous. When the alien departed, only the shell of the Impact would remain.

This was what had happened to the hostages aboard the flagship. It was not merely that the hosts had fought; they had been deliberately brutalized into schizophrenia for the convenience of the invaders. The Lady Andromeda was a harsh mistress! Without question she needed to be chained!

Melody swam about, getting the feel of her new body as she explored the host and hostage minds for information. Apparently there were five hostages aboard this ship; the other four were male, three Sibilants, one Undulant. They had not yet taken over the ship, but at the signal from the command ship they would kill the Spican captain and his loyal officers and assume control.

This was, as Yael would have put it, a gold mine! The Andromedan code signal for action hour was “Six of Scepters.” A Tarot code! Scepter was another term for Wand, a more royal-sounding variant. The Suit of Energy was associated with Galaxy Andromeda, the greatest energy thieves in the universe. And the Six of Energy signified victory, victory for Andromeda—in a simple code few if any Milky Wayan space officers would comprehend.

She now had the information she would have gotten from Tiala—or did she? There was no hint here of the thing she suspected. But of course Chisel of :: had no need to know the details of the larger plan; she was concerned only with her ship. So Melody’s suspicion could still be valid. She hoped not.

Now she had a job. She had to eliminate four more hostages, advise the Spican captain of the situation, and return to the Ace of Swords. Then go out again—and again. She had no hope of neutralizing every hostage in the fleet, but she had to build a nucleus of secure ships for the moment the “Six of Scepters” was invoked. With luck they would be able to postpone that order indefinitely, since it probably was supposed to come through Dash. But it might be a generalized signal from Andromeda itself, unstoppable. Then it would be—

She tried to shake her human head, and of course it didn’t work, as she wasn’t human any more. So she played a complex chord of mixed emotions—and that didn’t work either. Her change of host and the battle with an alien aura had unsettled her, evoking inopportune responses. Her Impact body merely expanded momentarily, causing her to jerk toward the surface of the sea—only there was no surface.

The ship was a huge cup, the hollow of it oriented on the near star, Etamin, reflecting its rays of light into a focal point for collection and conversion to ship’s power. Power, as always, was crucial. Every ship of space had two prime requirements, and the first was power. The Swords of Sol slashed against sunlight, the Disks of Polaris intercepted it, the Cups of Spica dipped it. Small ships could operate on stored power, but they reported often to their host ships for recharging. The big vessels had to have a continuing influx of energy, and only the stars could provide that. Thus the big fleets were always parked near stars, their orbits eliminating the need for drive-power and their shapes serving as solar collectors. They might resemble the five suits of the Tarot, but this was no mere fancy; these were efficient shapes for prolonged action in space. Any interstellar ship that did not possess substantial light-collection apparatus was suspect; it could not support living entities directly.

The other requirement for spaceships was gravity. No better mechanism had been discovered for controlled artificial gravity than centrifugal force. So every major ship had to spin, which meant that it had to have an axis of rotation and be symmetrical; an off-balance ship could not spin effectively. While there was no need for streamlining in space, the requirements of symmetry and light collection produced ships that were fairly simple in outline, and smooth.

Gravity was less of an immediate factor in the water-medium of this ship, since the liquid was all-supporting. But gravity was still necessary to avoid the chore of pressurizing the entire ship, and to provide orientation. There had to be an “up” and a “down” or swimming became awkward. Spicans also required the continuing exercise of adjusting to changing pressure; of rising by expanding the tissues, and sinking by contracting them. If these abilities atrophied by too-long immersion in constant pressure, the space-going individuals would be unable to return to their home seas. Solarians faced a similar necessity of gravity, for their muscles atrophied if not constantly exerted. Gravity was not a matter of mere comfort, but of survival.

Melody came to a colored marker suspended in the water. Her host-mind gave warning; this was the boundary of the Sibilant zone. Unlike Solarians, Spicans had to be segregated by sex. Any two sexes could associate, but never all three, unless mating were intended, and even then, never in groups.

Melody had excellent reason not to mate! She shied away from the marker. However, this posed a problem: She was an Impact, and the other hostages were Sibilants and an Undulant. She had to get into the other zones— and that meant the risk of mating. For once the three sexes met mating was not voluntary. Three together meant immediate mergeance and parturition—and a shift of sexual identity for Melody. Of course in one sense it would not matter, while she was in a Spican host, for this same Impact could accommodate a male or a female mind. But it would become impossible to return to her human female host. And Melody dreaded to think what forced participation in Spican reproduction would do to her if she were trapped into it in the masculine role. She might forfeit her sanity. For she could not turn the function over to her host-mind; the host Spican was borderline insane now, and Chisel of :: would not readily yield control once she recovered it.

Well, she would have to manage. Maybe she could report directly to the Captain. She fished for information in the host/hostage minds. He was Llono the Undulant, an experienced, competent spacer and a high-Kirlian, which was why he had not been taken hostage. The few higher-aura entities in the Andromedan invasion squad had been reserved for more important positions. Good. Melody would be able to relate to him. She thought of the Captain as male, though this was meaningless in the Spican scheme. He had procreated before, therefore he was male by Mintakan definition, even though his next mating might make him a mother. In Sphere Mintaka there was no mother-father distinction, anyway.

She swam for the command chamber, which was around the side of the cup. She used one of the reserved corridors, so that no non-Impacts would be encountered. The water was not in the center section of the cup, but in what Solarians thought of as the rim and sides. The center was of course hollow, to focus and collect the light energy. So she had to follow a broadly circular route. Fortunately her host, who was Datok the Impact, was off shift now, and free to circulate. When on shift, Datok was Chief of Gunnery, in charge of the huge water bombs that were the primary offensive armament of the ship. Melody was not certain how this weapon operated in space, but she didn’t want any squirted at the flagship.

She came to the Undulant markers. No help for it; she had to enter this zone in order to reach the Captain. She dared not use the ship’s communications system as the Communications Officer was a hostage. The Captain was a practical sort; he would not be easy to convince without direct evidence—and that would be impossible to provide without a transfer unit. She would have to convince him of her identity, then have him message the Ace of Swords under the code phrase “Lot of *” and get confirmation from Skot—

No, that message would go through Llume, as it was not a short-range shuttle beam, but Llume did not know the code. That would distort the response, and leave the Spican Captain unconvinced. No message!

Then how could she convince him? She would simply have to tell him the truth, and hope he was smart enough and objective enough to verify it in his own fashion. If she failed…

“I’m only an old neuter,” she told herself. “I hate adventure!”

Then she swam on through the dread Undulant zone toward the command pool.

She was in luck. Captain Llono the Undulant ran an “open” pond, and was freely accessible to his officers. His alarm net informed him of Melody’s approach, and by the time she arrived he had cleared the pool of other entities.

“Salutation, Datok the Impact,” he said. “What brings you swimming here in such haste, unannounced?” This was, of course, a serious breach of form; an entity could get abruptly merged that way. But the Captain was taking it in stride, in his nonstriding fashion.

“Sir, I must communicate with you privately,” Melody said. “Complete privacy.” Like him, she spoke sonically, using a vibrating mechanism inside her body. Sound was very efficient in water. Too efficient; their exchange would be audible far away.

“My office is secure,” Llono said, swimming gracefully toward it. His general outline was similar to that of Melody’s host, but he lacked flippers; he moved by flexing his flattened, sinuous torso. An Undulant in motion was an elegant thing, justly praised in Spican lore.

“Sir—I fear it is not,” Melody called hastily, thinking of the hostage Communications Officer who would surely have the office bugged.

The Captain paused. Her remark about his office was insulting, but again he flowed with the wave, taking no offense. Llono was known for his extreme diplomacy. “Then we shall converse in the garden.”

Melody plunged into her host-memory again. It really had been so much more convenient to have the Yael-host answer her questions; this constant spot-research was fatiguing. The garden was the single concession Llono made to his personal creature comfort. He was a career space entity, satisfied to live the rest of his life in this ship. But he missed the pretty vegetative life of his home seas. So he cultivated a garden. This was considered an anomaly, but not a serious one. He allowed officers and crew to swim through it on special occasions, and this contributed greatly to the morale of the ship. It was obvious that he believed Melody was angling for just such a swim, so he obliged. In the general stress engendered by the unexplained destruction of a neighboring spaceship, he was conscious of the needs of his crew. Melody found herself liking him.

They entered the garden. Pastel-colored streamers floated vertically, anchored by organic weights and floats. They formed arches and passages, and they spread a flavor in the water that was delightful. This was a miniature Spican paradise!

There were unlikely to be any mechanical listening devices here; the plants didn’t like electrical things, and they also tended to damp out sounds. They glowed faintly, their hues indicating their types. Some, she realized, were actually animals, with intricate filaments combing the water for sustenance, and long vinetails descending to the bottom. The plants needed some light, but the animals could get by without it. The ship’s main food supply was a special lake containing hardy, edible species of such animals, together with masses of plankton. But the Captain’s garden was more natural, seeded with sea-insects as well. Now Melody heard the gentle chirruping the animal-flowers made to attract those insects. Oh, this was lovely!

The Captain halted. “Your message, Datok?” Gently spoken, but it had better be good!

“I am not Datok,” Melody said. “I am a high-Kirlian transfer agent from Sphere Mintaka. If you touch me, you will feel the strength of my aura.”

This was another social gaffe, with homosexual overtones, as Spicans did not touch each other apart from mating. But the Captain’s broad-mindedness rose to the occasion again. He undulated toward her, until he touched—barely. Melody felt his aura now: about 110. Very high, for such a position; had the segment had more warning of this crisis, he would have been conscripted for transfer duty.

He evinced surprise. “I did not know auras of that magnitude existed! It must be double mine!”

“Correct, Captain. Mine is the strongest aura recorded in Segment Etamin. I have taken over the body and mind of Datok in order to implement a mission for our galaxy. We are at war, again—with Galaxy Andromeda.” Quickly she explained the nature of the hostage threat, and her counter to it.

“This is most serious business,” Captain Llono said. “I must accept your statement of the threat of hostaging, for you are obviously not Datok, and there has been no opportunity for any substitution of physical entities. But I have no certainty that you are not yourself Andromedan.”

That made Melody pause. “Captain, you are astute! I had feared you would not accept my thesis. You are right; I must prove myself to you. But how may I do this?”

“I am inclined to believe you. You would not have informed me of this Andromedan plot if you were yourself such an agent. Still, I am disinclined to take action without verification; your mind might operate more deviously than mine.”

“Yes.” Melody remembered how she had assumed that Captain Dash Boyd of the Ace of Swords was loyal. Assumptions were treacherous. “I could relate to you certain obscure facets of Mintakan culture—”

“I am not conversant with Sphere Mintaka, except with respect to space armament.”

“I don’t know anything about armament, Captain. I was a mere old maid, unversed in military—”

“Interesting you should mention your mating status. In this lies the proof.”

“Captain, I don’t understand.” But she had a cold premonition.

“When a Spican trio merges in the act of reproduction, the flesh and nervous systems overlap. The thoughts of each become known to the others, enhancing the unity. Generally these are notions of copulative appreciation— but a question of identity would also be clarified.”

Beautiful! No deceit among lovers. But—“Captain… I can’t do it.”

“Does the notion of merging with me repulse you?” Llono inquired sardonically. Obviously it was her galactic loyalty he was questioning; interpersonal attraction had little to do with Spican mating. Her refusal threw her whole statement into doubt.

“Captain, such mergeance would very likely destroy me,” she said. “I would be unable to return to my human host.”

“Why would you want to?”

“I—” She stopped, unable to explain because she did not understand it herself. If she became male, she could transfer to male hosts, and eliminate some of the male hostages that seemed to be in the majority. Why not? “I’m an old female neuter,” she said, aware that this concept, virtually a crutch to her thinking, was not particularly clear to a non-Mintakan. “I can’t change now.” Ridiculous but true. She saw suddenly that this was another reason that she had never budded; she had become accustomed to her status, and didn’t care to change it. Such shifts of sex were all right for young entities, who could adapt to the new set of relationships, but she was far from young, and had grown much accustomed to her present status. She simply could not feel herself as male.

“I regret the necessity,” Llono said. “But the matter you have raised is too vital to the welfare of our galaxy. I must insist.” He made a short piercing call.

Another entity appeared. It was a Sibilant, jetting rapidly toward them in answer to the Captain’s summons. The third sex.

For a moment Melody froze in place. She knew Llono was correct; the matter had to be decided, and this was the way to do it. She could not preserve her sex at the price of her galaxy. She played an internal chord of leave-taking from her human host, Yael of Dragon. Melody had come to love that girlchild, in her fashion. And there was another hidden motive surfacing in this instant of truth. How would Yael function by herself, bereft of transfer aura?

Then she recognized, via the host/hostage minds, the approaching Spican. It was Zysax the Sibilant, ship Communications Officer—and a hostage.

Melody’s flippers churned the water as she stroked rapidly away, almost getting snagged on one of the plants. Now she was really in trouble! The hostage would quickly catch on—and convince the captain that Melody, not Zysax, was the enemy. Even now Zysax and Llono were coming together, comparing notes…

“What the discordance am I made of?” Melody demanded of herself. “The hostage is the very one I want in this trio!”

She turned and stroked even more vigorously back toward the pair. Zysax did not see her; he was preoccupied by what the Captain was telling him. Llono saw her, but stayed put.

Melody gave a final heave of her flippers and launched into the pair. The force of the collision shoved her flesh right through theirs.

Suddenly they were in the throes of mergence. “What have I done?” Melody asked herself in the despairing ecstasy of union, knowing that she had had to do it, whatever the personal consequence.

You have proven your identity, Melody of Mintaka, Llono answered along her/their nerves. And you, Zysax—are hostage to a :: of Andromeda.

:: I am betrayed! :: the alien entity cried.

Melody sympathized, for her own reasons.

They climaxed in literal explosion. The three entities flew apart, and a mass of merged flesh was torn from the bodies of Llono and Zysax. The Sibilant was now the parent of a little Sibilant, and Llono was the sire.

Zysax and her baby slid out of sight beyond the veil of plants, driven by the force of the reproductive schism. It was important that there be an immediate separation after mergence, so that a trio would not be trapped into another cycle of mating. The Captain swam back, his body reorganizing after the loss of a sizable segment of flesh. Spicans were not solid in the manner of Solarians or Mintakans; their flesh was frothy and malleable, and the deletion of a chunk meant only a temporary inconvenience.

“Now I possess data,” Llono said. “I shall promptly dispatch the remaining hostages, and send you back to your ship. In fact, I believe I will volunteer for transfer service myself; my aura is higher than that of most hostages.”

“We can use you right now,” Melody said, surprised and grateful for his gesture. “But the work is dangerous.”

“I am aware of that. However, it would be more dangerous to allow hostages to take control of a ship in this fleet whose weapons bear on my own ship.”

“Irrefutable logic,” Melody agreed.

“Doubtless. I got it from your mind.”

They swam back to the Captain’s office, where he gave orders concerning the disposition of the hostages, and made new assignments to fill the vacated positions, including his own. “I would have been killed soon by the hostages,” he explained. “It is fitting that I employ the life I have recovered in an attempt to save the lives of my companion captains.”

Then they swam into a shuttlecraft for the trip to the Ace of Swords The craft was of course filled with water, and was very heavy, so acceleration was slow. As the water cushioned even that thrust, Melody was hardly aware of their motion. Llono piloted it expertly, allowing Melody her thoughts. They were not happy ones.

“You seem despondent, my recent mate,” Llono observed.

“Its not a matter of galactic importance,” Melody said. “I simply haven’t gotten used to the notion of being male.”

“Why should you have to?”

“I had thought you understood. When Mintakan buds—”

“I understand the convention. But this does not apply.”

“You of all entities should certainly be aware that—”

“Do you feel male?”

“No,” she admitted uncertainly.

“Then you have not changed. It is only your self-image that modifies, since your Mintakan body has not participated.”

“But we merged! There was offspring!”

“True, we merged. But you were neither Parent nor Sire.”

Melody’s flippers wiggled. “I was the catalyst!” she exclaimed, realizing. “I caused it to happen—without giving of myself. I have not budded!”

“I had supposed you understood,” Llono said. “That was a clever maneuver, retreating and returning, so as to assume the catalytic role. Had you not done so, you would have become the sire, and I the parent, a decidedly less convenient arrangement for us. I would not have been free to transfer, had I borne the child.”

“I remain female…” Melody said, and somehow it seemed the most wonderful thing possible.

12. Drone of Scepters

COUNCIL INITIATED PARTICIPATING * — / :: ^o_o

*issue of new leadership*

—if this must be, I propose slash—

:: slash betrayed us to the enemy in the prior war! quadpoint will assume leadership concurrence? ::

SILENCE

*slash proposed for leadership concurrence?*

CONCURRENCE

/grant me a period to orient my lasers and sharpen my blades there will be another council soon/

*POWER*

— / ^o_o CIVILIZATION ^o_o / —

:: (fools!) ::

There were a series of minor problems, such as identifying themselves to Skot of Kade and getting their water-borne bodies into the transfer unit without suffering damage. Skot was being ably assisted by Yael, who seemed to be enjoying her tour as a self-determined adventuress. The two of them and Slammer got the transfer unit set up at the edge of the temporary pool in the hold, and helped first Llono and then Melody flop into the unit. Gravity was so slight that the maneuvers were not as hard as anticipated. In fact their main concern was preventing the water from vaporizing every time the air pressure was reduced by their travels.

Llono went to another Spican ship whose captain he knew personally; he expected to have all the Cups washed in due course.

Melody tried for another Polarian Disk, expecting to bounce again. But this time she got through—and found herself in the body of the hostage Polarian captain. This was a marvelous break. She was able without fuss to arrest the three other hostages her memory identified, and to explain things to the ranking Polarian, whom she installed as new captain. The Andromedans here were all from Sphere *, of interest to Melody because of the Lot of *, but she did not try to comprehend the nuances of their five sexes. In their natural state they were serpentine entities that twisted into complex convolutions, every knot having significance; perhaps this made it easier for them to occupy the tailed Polarians. Melody was beginning to recognize certain broad families of Andromedans corresponding to those of the Milky Way. Some were foot walkers, some borers, some fliers, some swimmers. As with families of auras, they fell naturally into functional categories.

She returned to the flagship to discover that Llono the Undulant had already completed his first mission and gone out again. That was one efficient entity! Their nucleus of “safe” ships was now four. Given enough time and luck, the whole Fleet might be redeemed bloodlessly! Skot and Yael were working so well together that Melody began to wonder whether her return to her human host would be welcome.

She had freed the Ace of Swords, the Four of Cups, and the Three of Disks. Time to try a Canopian Wand, or Scepter. The particular term did not matter in Tarot; it was the concept that counted.

Skot activated the unit—and Melody bounced right back. “All right… try another Wand,” she said, vibrating her Polarian-host ball against the floor. This was a nice body! “I want to be sure of at least one of each kind of ship.”

But the second Wand bounced also, and the third. “Either they’re all loyal,” she said, “or they have no moderate-Kirlian female hostages.” She considered a moment. “Let’s try a straight transfer instead of a hostage takeover; they just might have a vacant female host. Canopians are smart about things like that” So Skot adjusted the setting and tried it again.

This time she found herself in a humanoid host. For a moment she was confused; then she remembered that the Canopian insectoid Masters used humanoid slaves. Naturally any hosts they reserved would be of this type!

She explored her new mind. No… this was not a prepared host. This was $fe of Y◊jr. Y◊jr was, or had once been, a warrior planet/tribe, with fierce people and primitive customs, $fe was a Slave, but she was fiercely loyal to her Master. The ferocity of independence in her genetic makeup had converted nicely to the ferocity of dependence. Her Master’s fall from power had created such stress in her that her aura had vacated.

Melody rechecked that, dubious. It was true: $fe’s Master was her life, and evil to his person was evil to her soul. The concept of his loss of power was literally unthinkable to her. So here she sat in a state of collapse—and because she was merely a slave, and not even an important one, no one had even noticed her demise.

Melody held her position while she worked out more of her current situation, $fe of Y◊jr was body-Slave to Drone. Drone? Melody had to plumb a welter of concepts here. Canopian Masters were known by combinations of letters and numbers, such as A:::5, F:::3. They were essentially neuter, or neutered females, like the worker-bees of Sphere Sol. This explained why Melody had bounced on her previous attempts., She was also a neuter female, but the direction differed. She had proceeded from neuter to female, while Canopians went from female to neuter, becoming essentially male in their final evolution. She could not identify with that! The slave, in contrast, was a full female humanoid like Yael of Dragon, capable of reproduction, but virginal. Much better associations, there!

But this Drone Master—ah, here it was! Every initially female Canopian entity possessed the potential to become a full female if properly fed; a queen. But queens never went to space. They mated with full males, or drones, the only truly masculine Masters. A drone, in the insectoid hierarchy, was parallel to a queen, but since only one drone could mate with a queen, the others became expendable. So they went to space—as captains of ships. Because they were not stunted neuters, they did not fit the mechanistic classification system; but since only one was aboard each ship, he needed no private designation. He was simply the Drone, the Captain—the ultimate authority. For reference between ships of the Canopian contingent, this was the Drone of the Deuce of Scepters.

Melody looked up. Across the chamber from her stood the Drone. He was huge, much larger than ordinary Masters, and beautiful. Bright bands of color traversed his abdomen, and his wings were iridescent. His six limbs were stout and strong, his mandibles powerful, like monstrous pincers. There must have been a time in the evolution of the species when the drone was the warrior-king, the fiercest fighter of the tribe, protecting the queen and minions. But most compelling were his eyes: two great multi-faceted crystals that reflected the light of the room like little mirrors. Hundreds of miniature images, like the massed thought of his great mind…

There was a film of dust on the fur of his feet. $fe reacted with horror. She had to clean away that dust instantly! It profaned the Drone! She got up and started toward him.

“Desist,” the Drone said immediately. Even the formidable timbre of his voice sent a shiver through the host’s nervous system. This was $fe’s god!

$fe would have been frozen in her tracks by that directive, but Melody was no slave, and her response to the warning was not swift enough. Her forward arm touched a shimmering curtain that crossed the room between them —and the searing pain caused her to fall back, exclaiming in agony.

The surface of her arm was turning red. She had been burned by a sheet laser; there would be blisters and sloughing of skin.

She paused to consider the situation, while the savage pain subsided slowly. The Captain had discovered the hostages prematurely, and they had made him prisoner by using the discipline box on him. This was a pain-generating unit that could be set to cause steady pain on a scale of one through ten, or to cause variable pain as the prisoner tried to resist it. The box picked up the myriad indicators of the functioning body and adjusted its output accordingly. It was a most sophisticated device; no entity could resist it. The Drone could not even think consciously of escaping.

The Drone-Captain was in a sheet-laser cell, so that he could not even accidentally escape the box. Its effect faded rapidly with distance, so it had to be kept close to the subject It was not tuned to Melody’s host, so she could have approached and turned it off, but a double laser barrier curtain separated her from it.

She paced around her scintillating cell. The Drone surely knew how to deactivate the box, but even if she were free, he could not tell her, because that would be an escape-thought He could warn her against danger to herself, because that did not relate to his escape, but that was all.

So they were helpless. Melody’s host simply did not know enough to get around the barriers, and the Drone could not tell her. What a trap!

“Regret,” the Drone said.

There was no need to clarify his meaning. Melody’s host-system thrilled to her Master’s expression of concern. She had taken injury on his behalf, and he had taken note. Instead of chastising her for her negligence, he had issued a word of consolation. She would gladly have taken a thousand similar injuries, for similar reward.

But Melody was not $fe. Perhaps if she could communicate this to the Drone…

“Canopian,” she said clearly.

The reflections from his facets shifted as the Drone looked her way. It was not necessary for him to turn his head at all, since several facets covered her regardless of the way he was facing, so this was a signal of special attention. A Slave did not address her Master in this, manner!

“Please approach the curtain,” Melody continued.

Again the shifting of reflections, his only indication of surprise. Now he was definitely aware of a change in his Slave. The Drone walked slowly to the barrier, stopping just beyond it.

Melody moved up to the limit on her side. They could not touch each other, but they could approach to within the thickness of a molecule, if they were careful. Melody put one hand forward with extreme care.

The Drone did likewise with a forward appendage. As their extremities came close together, the two auras began to interact. The laser curtain had no effect on an aura, of course. The Kirlian intensity of the Canopian was extremely strong—about 140—which explained why he had not been taken hostage. By showing him her own aura, Melody had documented her status; the aura capable of making her hostage did not exist.

After a moment, the Drone withdrew. Melody knew he had felt her aura, and so he was now aware that she was a transferee. The fact that he did not speak suggested that he knew their speech was being recorded.

But he might think she was an Andromedan spy! No, for if the Andromedans had an aura like hers available, they would not have wasted it on a mere Slave; they would have taken over the Drone himself, instead of imprisoning him. So his logic should tell him that she was not one of the enemy.

The Drone now knew her nature, and knew what to tell her to do—but still could not show or tell her directly. So maybe she had gained nothing—but she felt she had made progress. She returned to the table and sat down. Her arm was still hurting from the burn, and she hated to waste valuable time, but all she could do now was wait and try to figure out the necessary course of action.

After a time, a Canopian Master entered the room. He (she/it) was a Solarian-sapient-sized black insectoid, perhaps half the mass of the Drone and not nearly as handsome. A hostage, obviously.

“So your little Slave has revived,” the hostage remarked callously. “Good. We can use her. Slave, come out.” It touched a control on a portable instrument, causing one curtain to fade out.

Melody hesitated, and it was well she did, for she discovered that $fe would not have obeyed the hostage’s directive. She could have given herself away that readily! She remained where she was.

“Drone, tell her to obey me,” the hostage snapped. The snapping was literal: its mandibles clicked.

“Do,” the Drone said.

Now Melody stood and crossed the room to stand before the hostage. She was tempted to attack it, but still didn’t know enough to free the Drone, so attack was pointless. Better to wait for a better opportunity, unless the hostage discovered her powerful aura and forced the issue.

“Go to the Master’s galley and fetch food,” the hostage said melodiously. Canopians had excellent linguistic ability, and always spoke well. “Feed the Drone.”

Melody drew on her host’s information and made her way down the corridor to the galley. This was a routine chore; she not only cleaned her Master, she fed him and carried away his wastes. With no personal distractions he was able to devote his full attention to his position as captain. Even from the uncomprehended fragments in the uneducated Slave mind, Melody perceived the massive capacity of the Drone. He had, by any definition, a first-rate intellectual competency.

Slaves operated the galley. “Hey, $fe,” the server said. She recognized him as 0slash;to of A[^th]. “What’s going on up front? The Masters have been acting strange.”

“This ship has been taken over by Galaxy Andromeda, 0slash;to,” Melody said.

He laughed, not equipped to believe the truth. “Here’s your order; go throw burl at Andromeda.”

Melody carried the canister, pondering. Burl—a plant cultivated on several worlds of Sphere Canopus. The berries were solid, and could be thrown. They were also squeezed for their juice, which was made into food for the Masters. To throw burl, thus, would be an insulting waste. It was, of course, safe to insult Andromeda, though it was apparent to Melody (if not to $fe) that the identity stood in lieu of a more proximate if unnameable enemy. The humanoids of the / intonation obeyed, but did not necessarily like, their insectoid Masters.

Interesting double-culture, this. Melody had reviewed Sphere Canopus as part of segment geography, way back in her bud stage, and of course there were references to it in the Cluster Tarot. Canopus was represented by the Suit of Wands (called Scepters by Canopians) and was one of the first and stoutest allies of Sphere Sol. The suit of Energy stood for many things, as did all the suits; any suggestion that there was any affinity between Canopus and Andromeda would have been fiercely denied by both parties. Flint of Outworld had visited Sphere Canopus in the host of a Slave. But there were many spheres in the segment, and many segments in the galaxy, and many galaxies in the cluster, and it simply was not possible to know or remember the details of all the species in them all. In addition, Melody’s personal aversion to sapient slavery had put a certain intellectual distance between her and this one. Now she wished she had choked off her own prejudice enough to give her a sufficient understanding of this culture. She did not have to like what she was finding here, but Canopus was a vital ally, and $fe’s devotion to her Master was genuine. In fact, it was so thorough it had to indicate that there were some redeeming features in the culture.

She entered the Drone’s room. “You have one unit,” the arrogant hostage said. That was a measure of Canopian time equivalent to about a quarter of a Solarian hour. Feeding and grooming the Drone normally required three units, so this would force her to hurry. Possibly they were keeping him alive because they might need him as a figurehead in dealing with nonhostage ships, at least until the overt takeover occurred. The Slaves would obey the Drone without question, but might balk at running a Droneless ship; the familiar symbol of authority was important. The captain could be forced to perform to a certain extent with the discipline box. So they kept him at least minimally healthy.

The hostage phased out the laser curtain so Melody could pass, then restored it behind her. Now she was in with the Drone, but still didn’t know how to free him. This box-laser combination was a simple yet excruciatingly effective prison.

She opened the warm canister of burl-juice and set it under the Drone’s proboscis. He dipped his imbibing tube into it and slowly drew the liquid in. Meanwhile, Melody picked up the set of brushes that were on the floor beside him, and brushed out the fur of his abdomen and legs. The wings needed attention too, but it was impossible to treat them in a hurry; she would only tear the gossamer membranes. Such a beautiful figure of an entity, this super-Master; how it hurt her $fe-mind to groom him so hastily.

He knew how to be freed—if only he could tell her. Yet how would he do that, with the pain-box monitoring his reactions?

“Time,” the hostage said coldly.

So soon! She had hardly started. But she dared not dally; the hostage would act ruthlessly. She set aside the brush, picked up the empty canister—and found it half-full.

Strange. The Drone always consumed a full ration; it was necessary for his health. He had typical Canopian Master nerve; his predicament would not have affected his appetite or performance. He was not sick. He must have slowed his consumption deliberately, an internal matter that would not activate the discipline box. Perhaps he was trying to commit suicide by starving himself—no, the box would stop that, too. So something else…

The hostage-insect touched the control, phasing out the curtain. And suddenly Melody caught on.

She hurled the canister at the hostage. It struck it on the head, the juice spraying over it. It stumbled back, cursing in some Andromedan language. The blow alone would not have hurt it much, but the sticky juice coated its faceted eyes and filmy wings and distracted it.

Melody ran toward the shelf on which the discipline box sat. The curtain here had not been phased out; the hostages were too canny for that. She took a breath, closed her humanoid eyes tightly, and launched herself at the box.

The laser caught her in a ring of fire that singed off her hair and clothing. The agony was momentarily unbearable, but her flying inertia carried her into the wall. Her hand struck the box, caught it, held it though her legs remained in the curtain of agony and were being inevitably cooked. She gritted her teeth and grabbed the setting-knob, twisting it violently.

Immediately she realized it was the wrong knob, the wrong direction. The Drone stood stiffly, shuddering; she was inflicting nine- or ten-level pain on him, up near the fatal range! Quickly she turned it down to zero, then found the personal tuner and wrenched it around. He was free!

The Drone moved so quickly he seemed a magnificent blur, or maybe it was her burned eyes fading. He shot over to the hostage, picked it up in his two front legs and stove its head in with one crunch of his deadly mandible pincers. Then he took the laser-control and turned it off.

In another moment the Drone was back with Melody. He lifted the box from her flaccid fingers and twiddled with it. At that moment another hostage entered the room, but it froze as the Drone found his setting on the box. Stiffened by pain, the hostage could offer no resistance as the Drone calmly moved over and crunched its head.

Melody, satisfied the situation was under control, fainted.

She woke in pain. Another Slave was tending to her. But as soon as her eyes opened, the Drone came over, “Sfe of Y◊jr, I am in your debt,” he said.

There was something strange about his intonation. In a moment it came to her: he had omitted the baton sinister! Not the $fe of Slave-status, but Sfe of free-status. There was no finer reward for a Canopian humanoid.

But of course she was neither slave nor humanoid in her home-Sphere. “I am Melody of Mintaka,” she said with difficulty, for her lips were burned. It was hard to look at him, because part of her eyelids was also gone and her eyeballs were drying. “Please return me to my ship—the Ace of Swords—so I can transfer to another body.”

“Immediately, alien ally,” the Drone said. “This host of yours is finished; we preserve animation at this moment only by application of strong drugs. You acted with extraordinary courage. How may I repay my debt to you?”

Courage? Her? She had acted before she had a chance to consider the personal consequence, and once she was in it there had been nothing to do but carry through. But evidently debt was not merely a Polarian or Mintakan concept. “Just use your ship well on behalf of our galaxy—and be kind to your next body-Slave.”

“Agreed,” the Drone said, not bothering to quibble with her implication that he had not treated his prior Slave properly. $fe had loved him; he had obviously treated her well. But Melody was already fading out; she knew this body was dying. Little of the skin remained, and the legs might as well have been amputated.

She woke in her Yael body. The Canopian shuttle had brought her home, and Skot had retransferred her. She must have given the code signal somewhere along the way. “What happened?” Skot demanded to know.

“Bit of trouble. Let’s get on with the job.”

13. Ship of Knyfh

/I wish the support of quadpoint in this crisis/

:: only proceed to action hour you will have support ::

/and if there are complications of the nature — feared?/

:: then quadpoint will resolve them ::

Melody transferred next to a ship of Segment Knyfh. She had no idea what she would encounter there—which was why she selected it. She now had a rough working knowledge of the Swords of Sol, the Cups of Spica, the Disks of Polaris, and the Scepters of Canopus, but the Atoms of Knyfh were a complete mystery to her, despite the fact that her own Sphere Mintaka used a roughly similar type of ship. She didn’t understand her own Sphere’s ships either. A mystery in the power of the enemy was not good; she had to know its capabilities.

The Knyfh vessel was indeed like a giant atom, an almost perfect replica of the symbol for the Suit of Aura in the Cluster Tarot deck. Two spheres spun in close magnetic orbit about a common center, like a proton and a neutron. Farther out there were a number of rapidly orbiting spots, moving so fast they were virtual rings or globes: the electrons. These were the light-gathering units, but they also seemed to serve admirably as a kind of defensive shield. What would happen to any solid object that attempted to penetrate that glittering barrier?

Segment Knyfh was generally considered to be more advanced than Segment Etamin. A thousand years before, an emissary from the then Sphere Knyfh had brought the gift of transfer to the then Sphere Sol, initiating the explosive expansion of Sol’s empire of influence. However, there had never been a close association between the two. Segment representatives met from time to time to determine galactic policy, but news of these contacts was not generally published widely in Sphere Mintaka. So the nature of the other great segments of the Milky Way galaxy was almost as mysterious to Melody as those of Andromeda. She knew the names of the ten major segments, and that was about all.

“Freng, Qaval, Etamin,” she thought to herself in a kind of supportive litany. “Knyfh, Lodo, Weew, Bhyo, Fa¿, Novagleam, and Thousandstar.” In her youth she had dreamed of what life must be like in Thousandstar, most distant of the segments, and popular literature had many fanciful stories about such places. But genuine information was scant.

So now she went to this representative of the token contingent of the allied segment, and found herself in the incredible body of a sophisticated relative of the magnets. This was no physical ball, but a miniature of the ship, with a compact nucleus of five spheres and a scintillating outer energy shell that rolled across the deck. The magnets Melody had known were bound to the metal passages of a ship, but these atom-hosts used magnetism mainly internally. They could levitate in the vicinity of metal, but could also travel elsewhere, much as Polarians did, utilizing the principle of the wheel. Most—virtually all—of the mass was in the nucleus, so that there was plenty of leverage to control the orientation and motion of the shell.

It was a very nice body, though it was not precisely a body at all by her prior definitions. But she could not concern herself about that; she had to deal with the Andromedan entity that had made it hostage. And it was a savage one: Bluefield of ^o_o. Not the blue of a field of Solarian flowers or of a mournful Mintakan tune, but the hue of an intense magnetic field. Had this entity possessed an aura to match her electrical power, Melody would never have been able to transfer to it. Bluefield fought in the fashion she knew best, sending jolt after jolt of magnetic energy through host and aura, disrupting both by associated currents. Melody was very nearly dislodged before she learned to parry the ferocious onslaught. As she had nowhere to go, loss of her hold would have meant extinction; contrary to spiritualistic folklore, no aura could exist in the absence of some type of host.

But again her overwhelming superiority of aura saved her. She simply had more intensity than any other entity could cope with. She closed in on the Andromedan sentience, tightening her hold. “Yield, Bluefield—so I won’t have to destroy you.”

To her surprise, Bluefield yielded. Suddenly Melody was in her mind. The ^o_o entities were of the broad class of magnetic sapients, structurally between the solid magnets like Slammer, and the atomic Knyfhs. They had two charged spheres in orbit about each other, but no outer energy shells, and could move anywhere by “walking” the spheres. They were unique (in Melody’s limited experience) in that their sapience was housed in two physically unconnected units; a single unit could not function intelligently. The magnetic interactions between the parts not only made motion possible, it made thought possible!

Melody’s Mintakan brain was tripartite, each section dominating a type of music: string, percussion, wind. The Solarian brain was bipartite, resulting in confusing dichotomies. This ^o_o mind reflected the split brain of the Andromedan creature, but it was not very much like the human brain. The two parts could separate and reunite with other parts, forming new entities. There were actually four sexes, which could unite in six distinct combinations. The complete entity was therefore technically neuter, or bisexual. Melody, a changeable neuter, had been able to enter this hostage; a truly sexed entity would have been balked.

The Sphere Knyfh host was also technically neuter. Any Knyfh could mate with any other, their mergence of nucleus and electron orbit resulting in prompt fissioning into two new compromise entities. Thus in both species, population was stable; new entities could be produced only from the parts of the old ones.

Melody paused. There was something strange about this. Population could shrink, from the demise of individuals, but if population could not grow…

How had either Knyfh or ^o_o ever gotten started? There had to be a way to create new individuals, to increase the size of the total population. Otherwise the colonization of a sphere or segment would have been impossible. A planet might have several billion sapient inhabitants; a sphere required trillions. Where did they come from?

Melody probed… and her amazement grew. Neither Knyfh nor ^o_o knew the source of their populations. Mergence and fission proceeded indefinitely; prior combinations were impossible to trace down. Their populations did expand, but there was no known origin of individual entities. They were just there, and seemed always to have been there, logic to the contrary.

Knyfh and ^o_o logic did not struggle with this concept. It was not a logic Melody could readily understand, but it seemed to serve well the needs of the species who used it.

At the moment, she had another concern: to rid the ship of hostages. There were nine of them, all with high auras. She had overwhelmed the one with the lowest Kirlian intensity. This ship was the Ace of Atoms; Andromeda had regarded it as a critically important target!

Bluefield was liaison officer to the Knyfh crew. On this ship, like all so far, none of the crew was hostage. The most efficient use of Andromedan power was in making the leaders hostage; the crew merely followed orders. It simplified recovery of the ships; eliminate the hostages and all was well. The crew would never know the difference.

Melody performed the routine duties required of her host, drawing on the hostage-mind. There were always snarls to be untangled, substitutions of all entities, special situations. Melody could not leave her post without suspicion until her shift expired, which meant delay, but she managed to use the time to fill in her gaps of knowledge. She hovered at the communications console, making her decisions known by coded fluctuations of her electron shell, and learned.

This ship’s armament was magnetic. Since metal was much used in all ships of the fleet, especially alloys of iron, all were subject to magnetism. The fields generated here were so strong they could operate at intership distance, alternately attracting and repulsing the enemy with such force that his ship could be damaged or even broken apart. At greater distances, the enemy’s control instruments could be sabotaged magnetically. These magnetic weapons lacked the almost infinite range of the Solarian lasers, but in near proximity, the Knyfh attack would be devastating. Melody knew she would not want the flagship to be in range of a hostage-controlled Atom.

At least she had time to plan her local campaign. She picked out each name from the hostage mind. The Captain was free. He had a aura of 160, too high to take over by an available ^o_o entity, and was probably the highest loyalist of the entire fleet. But the Transfer Officer was hostage to a ^o_o with an aura of 135, and—

Transfer Officer? Melody focused on that. Sure enough, this ship had a transfer unit aboard! Melody had assumed that the unit on the Ace of Swords was the only one in the fleet, but of course this Atom was a representative of another segment, a more sophisticated one. The presence of the unit made this ship doubly vital. The Andromedans could use it to take over more entities. No… her host-mind informed her that it was not the proper type. To modify it for hostaging would be to put that secret in the field, something that could not be risked. This was inflexible policy; the secret never left Andromeda. In fact, it never left Sphere —, and hardly left Planet £ of that Sphere. Bluefield’s information confirmed Tiala’s; the / hostage had not lied under the Lot of *. Melody found that vaguely gratifying. And the policy itself was wise, in terms of Andromedan interest. Had Melody been able to capture a modified unit, Galaxy Milky Way would have had equalization of technology at a single stroke.

Still, that unmodified unit was important. It was probably heavily guarded as it was potentially a key mechanism of communication. Put a low-Kirlian voluntary host at each end, and the ships of Segment Etamin and Segment Knyfh could coordinate operations closely. Spot a hostage ship, and if it escaped Knyfh’s magnetism, Sol’s laser could beam it down. The Andromedans thought the loyal members of the fleet had no communications that could not be monitored by strategically positioned hostages— but here it was!

Should she go first to the loyal Captain, or tackle the hostages one by one herself? Obviously the first. It would be almost impossible to nullify eight more hostages without attracting unfortunate attention. The Captain could handle it most expeditiously. That approach had worked twice before, and as Yael would have put it in her cute Solarian idiom, one did not change a winning game.

But she could not just roll into the Captain’s office. On this ship there was protocol to be followed. This was essential in any encounter here, since any two Knfyhs possessed the capacity to mate. Such mating would change the identity of each, and that would be awkward in a military situation. In fact, mating—or as the Knyfhs put it, exchanging—was forbidden during this tour. The Captain especially was protected from temptation.

“Request permission for private audience with Captain,” Melody signaled formally into the officer’s circuit. Her present body possessed none of the senses of the Segment Etamin hosts she had previously used; everything was magnetic. But she was becoming accustomed to differing modes of operation, and hardly noticed.

“Hold,” the network responded. Presumably the Captain was preoccupied at the moment. Melody returned to her routine.

Soon a Knyfh appeared. “Request dialogue,” it signaled.

Melody oriented on it. The magnetic imprint resembled that of the Captain, but the aura differed. She had become highly attuned to aural nuances, for this was her primary tool for identifying hostages. This entity had a powerful aura; too powerful. It had to be a hostage!

“You are not Bluefield,” the hostage signaled. “Therefore you must be—”

Melody attacked. She could not afford to have her identity betrayed to the hostages yet! She hurled herself at the globe of the other entity.

Unfortunately, she had not had occasion to study the art of Knyfh personal combat. Her attack was a clumsy thrust that the other entity easily avoided. Melody rolled past and received in return a disorganizing, jolt of current. Her prior aura versus aura battles had seemed equivalent to physical encounters, since they were all on a single level, but now that she was in a real physical encounter, she discovered there was no real parallel at all. In aura versus aura she had a tremendous advantage; here she was merely even—or less than even. That dimmed her confidence considerably.

^o_o So you are a segment counterhostage ^o_o the other signaled, lapsing into his native mode of expression. ^o_o Your fiendishly strong aura will not avail you now. Do you wish to exchange identities before I destroy you? ^o_o

“No,” Melody replied. She recognized the other entity now: it was Greenaura of ^o_o the Transfer Officer hostage. And she knew the Andromedan was bluffing, at least in part; he would not kill her until he knew more about her. The existence of counterhostages would be a terrible threat to the hostage effort, and Greenaura would have to get at Melody’s mind to discover the full ramifications. For all Greenaura knew, she was one of hundreds.

On the other hand, she could afford to dispatch the Andromedan any way she could manage. So the terms of the combat were not so disadvantageous.

Greenaura rolled toward her. His electron shield scintillated with flexible power; he was a fine figure of a Knyfh, in optimum health, and an experienced soldier. The military mind might be rigid to the point of obtusity in general matters, but in combat on this level he was an expert. Melody knew she did not have a chance against him. But she had no chance to escape.

Here she was, vacillating wildly in her estimations, one moment expecting to win, the next moment knowing she would lose. And the Drone had thought she had courage!

Their shields interacted. Controlled current touched her stunningly; Melody’s strength was drawn off. She had let herself be vulnerable to a ploy no native would have fallen for. It was like allowing her Mintakan strings to be cut, or her Solarian throat to be looped without opposition. Her shield was now soft, permeable, laying her nucleus open to penetration; she could be fissioned—which, in the absence of prior mergence, meant destruction.

“Help me, Knyfh host!” she cried inwardly, reaching past the quiescent hostage within her to the original Knyfh mind.

And the stunted, suppressed, half-insane Knyfh mind sprang out, knowing only one cause: her galaxy needed help. This mind was Gnejh, a low-Kirlian tigress; on a purely magnetic level, a deadly foe.

Greenaura sent a spear of current through Melody’s shield, brushing her nucleus. The sensation was awful; she felt as if her nucleus was being sundered. ^o_o You will identify yourself, now ^o_o the Andromedan signaled. He knew the pain he was inflicting, and he would torture her until she broke under the strain.

Melody was silent. She felt the host-entity gathering, waiting, building up a nuclear charge. There was something horrible about it, like poison dripping from the jaws of a half-crushed reptile.

Greenaura’s spear came again—and the host struck. Jaws slicing through, twisting, severing, KILL, KILL. The spearhead was cut off, trapped inside Melody’s shield. DIE, DIE!

Greenaura screamed, ^o_o^o_o^o_o^o_o^o_o, a single spasm of current, the sheer agony of amputation—and the Knyfh touched his shield and drew off twice the charge Melody had lost. The predator had poked the supposedly helpless body of his prey, and been caught by the counterstroke. Now the advantage had been reversed.

Gnejh of Knyfh, insane but victorious, went for the kill. Melody let her. The host launched a devastating bolt through Greenaura’s weakened shield…

And it aborted! Bluefield of ^o_o, the Andromedan Melody had displaced, had flung herself into the charge and thwarted it as it passed between the two shields. Bluefield herself was destroyed by that interception, but she had accomplished her aim. Melody and her mad host were helpless again.

Greenaura, weakened, still had more strength than Melody did. He rolled into contact, the currents of his shield battering at hers. When that shell collapsed, Melody’s host would die. Slowly, surely, her last reserves waned, as they were drawn off to augment the thrust of the Andromedan’s shell. The broken electron orbit, Melody thought. So like the Tarot symbol for Aura, of plasmic matter. Was this a fitting end for her?

She suffered a terrible shock. Energy buffeted her shield, hurling her across the room. She had—

No! Greenaura had fissioned! Her enemy was no more. And abruptly Melody knew why: The hostage Knyfh that Greenaura had suppressed had chosen this moment of distraction to strike, just as Gnejh had struck before. The Knyfh had fissioned, destroying himself and his captor.

Melody rolled slowly around the room, gathering in some of the ambient energy released by the explosion of her rival, regaining her strength. She was half dazed by the violence of the battle; these Knyfhs and ^o_os were savage warriors, giving no quarter! She didn’t want any more encounters like that!

No wonder Segment Knyfh was regarded by the Andromedans as a major galactic target. Not only were they technologically sophisticated, they were resolute opponents. A Mintakan might yield when he saw that the issue was hopeless; a Knyfh would fight harder. Which perhaps explained why Mintaka was now a satellite sphere, while Knyfh was a segment.

Two hostages down, seven to go. Did the other hostages know about her? Probably not, because Greenaura had not been certain of her nature until the encounter—and the hostages had to hide themselves from the legitimate officers. Greenaura had investigated privately—and now would make no report. However, soon Greenaura’s demise would become known…

“Private audience with the Captain; urgent,” Melody signaled into the network again. Then, as an afterthought: “Matter of crew discipline.” That would justify her request, gaining the Captain’s prompt attention, while reassuring the other hostages. Crew discipline was not a matter to worry about; it was the Captain’s concern.

Sure enough: “Audience granted,” the net responded. “Immediate.”

This meant that Melody was immediately freed from her duties in order to visit the Captain. She hurled herself through the energy network of the ship, maneuvering around magnetic stops as though solving a giant maze. This ship seemed to have no solid walls, but a magnetic baffle was every bit as effective, as she knew from her experience with Slammer on the flagship.

She came into the Captain’s presence. He dispensed with protocol, moving in to touch his shell to hers to facilitate private dialogue. “What an aura!” his surface current exclaimed.

“Sir, I am Melody of Sphere Mintaka, Segment Etamin,” she pulsed. “I come to inform you that your ship has been infiltrated by Andromedans of Sphere ^o_o. They—”

“I am aware of the ^o_o intrusion,” Captain Mnuhl of Knyfh replied tersely.

“You are… aware?”

“I have reserved taking any action until I knew more of their strategy,” he explained. “I do not know how many other hostages exist in your fleet, or when they intend to strike. To eliminate the nine Andromedans aboard my ship without that knowledge is futile.”

“There are about four hundred in the fleet,” Melody said. “We have eliminated perhaps thirty. They wait for the signal ‘Six of Scepters’ from their hostage-captain on the Ace of Swords—a signal that will never come, because we have dealt with that command-entity.”

“I note you have tapped the minds of the hostages themselves,” Mnuhl signaled. “This I was unable to do.”

“It requires a four-to-one aural superiority, and adaptation of a transfer unit to orient on hostage-hosts,” she explained. “Even then, it is by no means certain, as the hostages resist strongly. I can show you how to set your transfer unit.”

“What of my original officers? I do not wish to do them harm.”

“The harm has already been done. The Andromedans destroy the minds of their involuntary hosts. Do you wish to speak with Gnejh, my host to verify this?”

“I do.”

Melody allowed her host-mind to communicate with the Captain. After a moment he drew back. “You are correct, Melody of Etamin. Her personality will no longer integrate with our society, and to permit her to fission reproductively would be merely to spread the malaise.”

“Yes,” Melody agreed regretfully. “Andromeda is no gentle maiden. She must be chained.” Then she gave a pulse of innovation. “Reproductive fissioning… would that destroy the hostages?”

“Not if the host-minds are defunct. It probably would only spread the hostages.”

“Not worth the risk,” Melody agreed.

“So I shall act,” Mnuhl pulsed with decision. He moved over to the net input and ran a current through it. “They are now gone.”

“Already?”

“The applicable code current will fission any entity of our species,” he signaled. “I made arrangements when I identified the hostages. The matter could not be left to chance.”

Again, Melody experienced an internal flux of horror. These military entities, of whatever Sphere, operated with a savage efficiency that dispensed with sapient lives as though they were unimportant. She could never be that way!

“Let me show you what is necessary,” she signaled. “Then you can transfer me to another hostage ship.”

“Agreed. My technicians will—”

He was interrupted by an incoming message. It was only three symbols, but their import chilled Melody to her nucleus.

SIX OF SCEPTERS

Some hostage had caught on, and given the action signal. Now all the hostages would proceed openly to take over their ships. The battle was on.

14. Heart of Spica

/action hour message all field commands: strike as suitable for individual situations/

The human host was in pain. Yael and Skot sat at a table in the control room, watching Llume the Undulant operate the fleet communications net. The magnets were hovering idly.

“Melody!” Yael cried internally, gladly. “How did you—?”

“Segment Knyfh has transfer units aboard their Atoms,” Melody explained. “What is going on here?”

“Llume—she—the pain-box…”

Now Melody recognized the sensation. It was a low setting on a Canopian discipline-unit, the device that inflicted pain in the entity to which it was oriented. She had had recent experience with this aboard the Deuce of Scepters, but hadn’t known any of these deadly boxes were on board the Ace of Swords.

“Llume put you and Skot on the boxes? Why?”

“She came to talk with you, and found us with the transfer unit. She asked me questions I couldn’t answer, and felt my aura and knew you were gone. I tried to hide it—” Yael started crying.

“Dear, you could not hide your lack of a two hundred-plus aura from one possessed of a one hundred-plus aura, once she was suspicious. It was just bad luck she checked, not your fault.”

“She went away, but then she came back with the pain-boxes. We didn’t know what they were until—Skot tried to fight the one fixed on him, but—”

“You can’t fight one of those discipline-boxes. The Canopian Masters who make them are expert at handling humanoid slaves. Once the unit is oriented on a specific person, even his thought of trying to get away from the box triggers—” She broke off as the wave of pain swept through her host. “Yes, precisely,” she finished as it subsided. “It is turned to your bodily reactions, tensions, so just don’t think about—” The pain started rising again. “Anything,” she finished hurriedly.

“Skot wouldn’t answer her questions—”

“He wouldn’t.”

“So she turned up the—Melody, I just don’t understand! Why would a close friend do that?”

Melody had forgotten that Yael had not had the same insights she had; in fact, Melody had not really believed it until now. Better to get the painful truth out, though: “Because Llume is another Andromedan agent. A most sophisticated one. That was what Tiala would not tell me in the Lot of *.”

Yael was confused. “I knew there was something funny there, but you didn’t—why didn’t you take over her mind, if you thought that?”

“Because making certain of that fact would have killed me—and maybe you. Tiala knew that I should be told about Llume… but she also knew that Llume would kill me the moment I learned. Tiala must have known about the discipline-boxes, and that Llume would use them. Llume could not act against me directly because of the magnet, but Slammer doesn’t understand the discipline-box. He would not have known what was going on, and I would not have been able to tell him. So Tiala would have violated the Lot of * by answering accurately, because an answer that destroys the querent is not valid, by the definition of that code. Tiala had integrity.”

Yael mulled that over, not fully comprehending it. “But if you had taken over Tiala’s mind…”

“That would have been outside the Lot of *. She would no longer be bound to tell me anything responsively, or to protect me, once the Lot had been invalidated. So she had to submit in silence, lest she betray her honor or her galaxy.”

“Then why didn’t you—”

“Because Llume would have acted against me the moment I overwhelmed Tiala’s aura. Only by remaining ignorant could I save myself—if what I suspected was true. I didn’t want it to be true… but it seems it was.”

“Your mind is so complex! Why didn’t she use the box on you anyway; and why did you let her keep working? You could have told Slammer to bash her! By now she must’ve told the whole fleet how you got rid of the hostages here!”

“Worse than that. She broadcast the ‘Six of Scepters’—the Andromedan signal for the overt takeover. Now, all over the fleet, ships are running up the Andromedan flag, figuratively. The battle is on—and we aren’t ready for it.”

“But—”

Melody realized she hadn’t yet answered Yael’s question. “She had no reason to act against me, as long as I didn’t know what she was. And I—needed a hostage to reassure the other hostages of the fleet that things were under control despite the setback at the Ace of Swords. So we—tacitly—agreed to let each other alone. For a while.”

Yael was amazed. “I don’t understand that at all!”

“Well, I’m not sure I understand it either. It seemed the expedient thing to do at the time, since I wasn’t sure, and couldn’t afford to be sure. Her aura is so much like mine, I just couldn’t believe she was Andromedan, though of course aura is no respecter of galaxies, and one of my own ancestors was a / of Andromeda. I was pretty foolish.”

“And now we’re trapped,” Yael said bitterly. “Just when we thought we were winning. Llume used the box on me, and I—oh, I told her everything I knew. The pain—”

“I understand. I saw to it that you didn’t really know much. It was lucky that I wasn’t here, or she would have had it all.”

“But she’s watching for you now!” Yael said with sudden new alarm. “The moment you come back in a shuttle to retransfer, she’ll—” She stopped. “But you transferred back! She doesn’t know—”

“Precisely. So we may have a certain subtle advantage. I knew something was wrong when that ‘Six of Scepters’ signal was broadcast, so I didn’t take any chances.” Melody sighed. “But I am still helpless; I can’t fight the box either.”

Then Melody lifted her hand casually and set it on Skot’s hand on the table. She could do this without any reaction from the box because she had no intention of attacking Llume or turning off the device. She just wanted to put Skot’s mind somewhat at ease.

Skot looked up, startled at the contact. He felt the intense aura and looked at her, wide-eyed. Melody nodded slowly.

“Why didn’t you catch Llume the first time, with the Tarot cards, the way you did the others?” Yael persisted. “And why did she help you catch the others?”

“Because she is a very special agent,” Melody said. “She doesn’t work with the others. In fact, probably only Dash and Tiala knew she was a hostage. She was their backup. It was her job to protect her secret until the time came for her to act. She was extremely well trained, so that she really thought like the entity she represented—a Spican transferee. Any little slips she might have made would be covered by the confusion between her Spican/Polarian identities. She is an expert in cultural nuances, and knows more about them than I do. She well knew what I was doing with the cards. There was no way I could expose her. All her actions were consistent with her role; where a true Spican would have helped me, Llume helped me—even against other hostages. Of course Dash knew what I was doing all along, and he was expert in Tarot, too. They were just letting me play my game, keeping myself busy, while Dash tried to convert me to his cause.” She sighed again. “It was a beautiful setup, and it came closer to success than I like to admit. Had I not happened to be an old Mintakan neuter…”

She looked at Llume sadly. “It was a most sophisticated operation, ruthless yet effective. All the other hostages of this ship were not worth as much to Andromeda as Llume, which was why Dash accepted defeat and exile without betraying her. He put his duty first.”

“I liked Llume,” Yael said. “Is that wrong?”

“I liked her myself,” Melody said. “Very much. I suppose that was the main reason I didn’t want to believe what I suspected. We are undone by our foolish foibles.”

The ship’s large viewglobe showed a holographic image of the fleet with image enhancement to make the picture clear. Bright motes shone: little swords, cups, wands, disks, and atoms representing the ships of the segment. The flagship was marked in red in the very center, surrounded by the other Sphere command ships. Farther out, but still in the nucleus, were Sphere contingents, grouped like protons. Then, beyond the battleship cluster, the rings of smaller ships began. These were not so readily identifiable by shape; they depended on thrust instead of spin for their internal gravity, and did not collect light. A Polarian scout looked much like a Solarian scout, both being needleships.

“This is Llume of /,” Llume announced to the fleet. “I am in charge of the flagship, Ace of Swords, having assumed command in the absence of the scheduled command, Bird of dash of Andromeda, who was lost in the course of ship takeover. I received the Action Hour notice and issued the ‘Six of Scepters’ alarm; I now coordinate this mission. Hostages have now had time to assume command of their ships as programmed. Vessels will now cluster about me, that we may know our strength. Any ship that approaches without demonstrating its Andromedan nature will be fired on by my lasers. I repeat: I am of Sphere slash, and Sphere slash now coordinates the entire galactic project.”

“Very bold bluff,” Melody remarked to Yael. “The lasers have the longest range in the fleet. As this ship has the most powerful laser cannon of all the Swords, it can act against any other ship before that ship can bring its own weapons to bear. And she reminded us that she is a slash entity; the slash are natural laser-users, so they really know how to handle such armament. So unfriendly ships will probably keep their distance.”

“Then it’s no bluff,” Yael said.

“But neither the Andromedans nor the Milky Wayans know that Llume is operating the ship alone. She has no drive technician, no laser cannoneer. So she can neither maneuver nor fire—not while she’s operating the communications net. Any ship could come up and blast her out of space. So it’s merely a nice ploy, and she has a lot of nerve.”

“You still like her, don’t you,” Yael observed.

“The Andromedans are entities like us. They do have their redeeming qualities. Llume may be my enemy, but she is still a lot like me.”

“You never betrayed your friends!”

“I fear I have betrayed my entire galaxy by misjudging Llume,” Melody replied sadly. “The hints were there, so obvious in retrospect, but I refused to pay attention because I liked her too much. I did not take proper steps to nullify her. And this is the result.”

Yael was silent.

Llume rolled away from the console and came to the captives. “I will turn the pain to zero intensity,” she said, “if the two of you will give me your pledges as Solarians to cooperate with me. The boxes will remain set to your frequencies but will not affect you unless you attempt to renege.”

She oriented first on Skot, placing her tail before him on the table. “You will operate the laser cannon controls, firing only on my order.”

Skot stared at her with obvious hostility. “No.”

Llume’s ball moved to Melody. “You will handle maneuvers, moving the ship on my order or in emergency defense of this vessel. It is more complex than you can readily handle, Yael of Dragon, but I will give you specific directions.”

Melody watched the Polarian ball. If it came much closer, Llume would pick up the strength of her aura and realize that Melody was back. As long as she thought Melody was somewhere else in the fleet, Llume would be uncertain. So the secret had to be protected; small as it was, it was all Galaxy Milky Way had.

“Yes,” Melody said.

Skot jerked up—then froze as the pain caught him. He couldn’t even call her traitor, but he didn’t need to.

The ball traveled back to Skot. “Yael has agreed. She is not as strong-willed as you, and she doesn’t like pain —but her direction is sensible. Will you now join her? I will not require you to do anything actually harmful to your allied ships; it will be a matter of firing warning shots.”

Skot’s only answer was to stiffen in agony.

“Then I set your box on two, while you consider,” Llume said.

Meanwhile, Melody’s pain had ceased. The boxes stimulated the pain nerves of the body, doing no actual physical harm. They were superlative control devices. “Please,” Melody said. “Set his level down again.”

Llume paused. “Since you cooperate, I honor your request. I return his setting to one.” And Skot relaxed somewhat.

Llume led the way to the maneuvers console, and gave Melody a quick general rundown. Melody paid close attention, while standing as far from Llume as she could without arousing suspicion, so that no chance contact could give away her aura. If she ever got free of the box, she wanted to know how to operate this ship.

A warner sounded at the communications console. Llume returned to it. “A capsule is approaching,” she observed. “It could be Captain Llono of Spica, in which case I would welcome him though I should have to confine him. I have a certain fondness for Spica; my host there was very nice. She was voluntary, having no knowledge of my true mission; the same is true of my Polarian host. I do not believe in damaging hosts, despite Andromedan policy.”

“Perhaps you should join the Society of Hosts,” Melody remarked.

“You have picked up certain mannerisms of your prior transferee,” Llume said. “That remark is typical of her.”

Melody had forgotten that Llume was a specialist in alien cultures. She had nearly given herself away! “I liked her,” Melody said.

“So did I. She was a resourceful, intelligent entity with a fine lovely aura,” Llume said. “It is with extreme regret I find myself opposing her. If she survives this war, I hope to be her friend again.” She studied the viewglobe. “I wish this host had better vision; I cannot be sure of the precise origin of that approaching shuttle. But in any event, I cannot take the chance that it is innocent. It could contain a radiation bomb.” She rolled over to the short-range radio. “Identify yourself, shuttle. Andromedan or Milky Way?” There was no response.

“Identify yourself,” Llume repeated. “Otherwise I must destroy you.”

Captain Llono must have been en route in the shuttle when the “Six of Scepters” announcement was broadcast, so didn’t know of the change in situation. This challenge from Llume probably confused him; it was on the wrong beam. So he was bluffing it out in silence while he tried to contact Skot on the other beam. Only Skot was no longer on duty in that capacity. Possibly Llono had caught on from these hints that something was wrong. Melody didn’t know whether to say something, and decided with regret to stay out of it lest she give herself away. She could not be certain that Llume’s conjecture about the radiation bomb was not correct.

Llume rolled over to the laser control console, oriented one cannon to verbal directive, focused on the shuttle, and fired.

Oh, Llono! Melody cried internally. Why hadn’t she spoken? Better that he be captured than wiped out! A mote flicked out in the viewglobe. “No explosion,” Llume observed. “Then it was not a bomb. Perhaps merely debris from the sundered Polarian craft.” But she did not sound convinced.

The irony was, Llume had acted entirely reasonably, by the standards of war. She had challenged the approaching craft, informed it of the consequence of unrecognized approach, and only then destroyed it. Had she not done so, all the fleet would have known she was bluffing. How could Melody blame her for that?

She glanced across at Skot. He was writhing in agony. Obviously he had tried to do something!

There was a period of silence, as if in mourning for the lost craft that might have been a bomb, and the inadequacies of those who might have allowed a brave entity to die needlessly. Melody rehearsed script after script in her mind that might have saved her friend, knowing it was pointless. She was guilty of the slaughter of a sapient entity, not in self-defense but in stupidity.

The fleet net came alive abruptly. “I am Mnuhl of Segment Knyfh,” a voice announced. It was a human voice, an automatic translation from the magnetic charges that were Knyfh communication. The net was geared to handle the full range of languages and modes of the fleet components. All messages were transmitted in common code, to be translated upon reception to whatever mode was applicable. “In the seeming absence of leadership in Segment Etamin, in the interest of Galaxy Milky Way, I am assuming temporary command of the loyalist forces of this fleet. I base this assumption on information obtained from Melody of Etamin, a special segment agent who helped me free my vessel of hostages. Loyalist ships will close in on my ship, the Ace of Atoms, after identifying themselves to me. It will be necessary for each vessel to acquiesce to search by my personnel to verify absence of hostages.”

Llume glowed. “This is Llume of Andromeda,” she said into the net. “The loss of your vessel is a blow to the cause of Andromeda, but I deal with you as pro tern Admiral of Segment Forces. Will you permit hostage ships to clear your vicinity without harassment, in return for a similar truce on our part?”

Melody could not help being fascinated by the military niceties. To indulge in a random melee would be wasteful and pointless, with ships firing on their own allies from confusion and ignorance. Therefore the two commanders negotiated politely to defer hostilities. Could she have saved Captain Llono the same way?

“Mnuhl here,” the Knyfh Captain responded. “I compliment you on your offer, and acquiesce.”

“Truce established,” Llume said. “One private question: Does Melody remain with you?”

“I do not feel free to divulge that information.”

“Was she aboard the shuttle that just approached my ship?”

“I must decline to answer.”

Melody nodded to herself. Captain Mnuhl was giving away nothing; he knew the importance of keeping the hostages in doubt about Melody’s location. Every hostage captain would be afraid that a high-Kirlian counterhostage was aboard his ship. That fear would multiply her effectiveness many times. Too bad she wasn’t able to make that threat genuine!

“Thank you, Captain.” Llume terminated the private exchange and returned to general information: “This is Hostage Command: do not fire on loyalist ships as they maneuver. Truce is in force. Andromedans will orient on the Ace of Swords; loyalists on the Ace of Atoms.”

Llume shut off the net. Then she sank into a glowing heap. It was, Melody realized, the Polarian way of expressing complete grief.

Skot looked up. “Andromedan, are you ill?” he inquired. His tone was not friendly, but the query was relevant. If Llume became incapacitated, Skot and Melody would be left under the control of the discipline-boxes, unable to free themselves—with the Andromedan fleet closing about them. If Llume did not maintain communications, the hostages would become suspicious and blast the Ace of Swords out of space.

Llume drew herself more or less erect. “It is an illness of the soul,” she said. “I fear I have slain my sister.”

“What is she talking about?” Yael asked. “She didn’t kill—”

“Let’s wait and see,” Melody said to her. “If what I suspect is true…”

“You are killing our galaxy,” Skot said coldly. “Why should one Spican matter to you?”

“Captain Llono!” Yael exclaimed, just catching on. “In the shuttle! Poor Spican Undulant!”

“I thought it was a trap, a bomb,” Llume said. “That is what an Andromedan would have done, testing the defenses. But it didn’t detonate under the laser. The Knyfh tried to conceal it, but I could tell Melody had left his ship.”

“She thinks you were in that shuttle!” Yael cried. Skot, torn by mixed reactions, did not speak.

“She was more like me than any I have known,” Llume continued, slumping again. “Such an aura! The Dash Command of Andromeda put out a directive to save that aura at any price short of capitulation, but I had even more reason to preserve her from harm. Instead, in an inexcusable lapse of logic, I betrayed the affinity of aura.”

“But she didn’t kill you!” Yael said to Melody.

“Wait,” Melody told her. “This just may be—”

Llume righted herself and returned to the communications console. “This is Llume of slash,” she said into the net. “I hereby resign my commission and become captive to the ranking remaining loyalist officer of this ship, Skot of Etamin. Please allow the Ace of Swords to join the loyalist cluster.”

Then she rolled across to Skot and turned off his discipline-box. “You are now in command. Orient the box on me.”

Skot, amazed, took the box. “You are betraying your kind?”

“No. I announced my captivity. The next in command will now assume coordination.”

Sure enough, the net was already active. “I am Hammer of Quadpoint, Andromeda. I assume command. Gather around my ship, the Ten of Disks. Truce holds.”

Skot deactivated Melody’s box. “Shall I tell her?”

“Let me.” Melody crossed to Llume and put her hand against the Polarian hide, letting her aura manifest. “Thank you for showing me your heart, sister,” she said.

“I have been in transfer too long. I have become a true Spican Undulant.” Then Llume glowed with realization. “Melody! I brought you back! I chose you over my galaxy—and now I have you back!”

“Yes,” Melody agreed, remembering the sacrifice of poor Captain Llono. Then she put her human arms about Llume, and cried human tears.

15. Sword of Sol

*report: complications manifest*

/as dash thought! specifics?/

*strong resistance in segments freng, qaval, knyfh, etamin, weew progress in lodo, bhyo, fa¿, novagleam, thousandstar*

/so it is by no means a clean beam! it may be a difficult war dash was right to be cautious we lack the reserves for extended campaign we were not sufficiently prepared action hour was premature/

*do you wish to turn over leadership to quadpoint?*

/yes, that seems best now only that force of approach can bring this to a proper conclusion now that we are inextricably committed we must prevail or suffer extinction ourselves, for the enemy will soon achieve parity of technology as it did before/

Melody had to experiment for a while with the Communications console before she got the hang of it. Skot assumed the navigation and gunnery duties. They needed more officers, but Melody didn’t want to force Llume to assume any of these tasks, though it was possible the discipline-box could make her perform. Could the magnets be made to understand any of the necessary chores of spaceship operation? She would have to explore that possibility when she had a chance. But first she had to establish private communications with Captain Mnuhl of Knyfh. The fleet net would not do for battle strategy!

The net was a diffuse magnetic field that encompassed the entire fleet. No ship-to-ship privacy had been necessary before the hostage intrusion, so little provision for it had been made. The only alternate mode of communication available was laser radio, used at short range to contact the shuttles. But that had to be aligned in laser style, which meant any ship contacted was simultaneously vulnerable to an attack-beam, and the other ships would hardly sit still for that right now! What else was there?

The transfer unit! Now she could try her notion. “Skot, we need some low-Kirlian hosts. I want to use paired transfer units to handle conversations with Captain Mnuhl, so no enemy can intercept them.”

“We have several former hostages in the hold,” Skot said dubiously. “Those entities you and Llono brought back.”

“Ideal! If we can get word to Mnuhl privately, so he can set up similarly without the Andromedans knowing…”

“I can try to transfer to his ship,” Skot said dubiously. A Polarian rolled into the room. Melody and Skot looked up, amazed. It was not Llume.

“You will remain absolutely still,” the Polarian said against the wall. “I possess magnetic weaponry. Identify yourselves.”

Had another hostage developed? Melody saw no weapon, but didn’t want to risk it. She could put her hand on one of the discipline-boxes in a moment. “I am Melody of Mintaka.”

“Skot of Kade.”

“Llume of Slash, Andromeda.”

Suddenly Slammer launched himself at the Polarian. “No!” Melody cried, too late.

But as the magnet came near the intruder, he lost power, and dropped helplessly to the floor. “I am Mnuhl of Knyfh,” the Polarian said.

Melody’s relief was so great and sudden she found herself laughing weakly. Of course! Mnuhl had thought of the same thing she had, and had already acted on it, taking over the available Polarian host. Had Llume not given herself up, Mnuhl would have contrived to overcome her. “Come, feel my aura,” Melody said. “I may look strange in my human host, but I am she whom you met aboard the Ace of Atoms.”

He did not approach. “In what guise?”

Melody realized that Mnuhl, too, had thought she was dead. He had come over to verify the situation personally. “In the guise of Gnejh, the mad one.”

Now he approached. “Then you are not chained!” he said as their auras confirmed each other. “I was concerned.”

“How did you stop the magnet?”

“We have long experience with lesser creatures of our type,” Mnuhl said. “It is not damaged; I merely depleted its power temporarily.”

Indeed, Slammer was now recovering.

“We are very short of officers,” Melody said. “Our crew-Solarians won’t do for command posts as they are untrained. So am I. Will you be able to help us?”

“We are drawing replacements for our own losses from Segment Knyfh via transfer,” Mnuhl replied. “But we are very short of hosts. Will some of your Solarians serve?”

Melody hadn’t thought of that. “Knyfh officers in Solarian hosts! I will verify in a moment.” She activated the crew-circuit. Her experience aboard Mnuhl’s ship had facilitated her competence here. “Require six volunteers for alien host duty,” she said. “Security of ship depends on it. Volunteers, not assignments.”

“Sergeant Jones of Personnel here, sir,” a male Solarian voice replied. That “sir” startled her, as it always did. She was also surprised by the immediate and routine answer, and had to remind herself that as far as the crew was concerned, nothing unusual had happened. They didn’t know about the savage battle in the officer’s section, or the loss of all but one of their regular officers— or even about the Andromedan threat. In a way, she envied them! “Will there be a performance bonus?”

Melody looked at Skot for advice. She was not familiar with this sort of thing. Skot nodded affirmatively. “Any reasonable requirement will be met,” Melody said crisply. “Use your discretion, Sergeant.”

“Six volunteers on the way,” Jones said.

Just like that! Melody hardly trusted the “volunteer” status, suspecting coercive assignment, but she would make sure before she used them. “We expect to have six suitable hosts,” she told Captain Mnuhl. “Does it matter which sex they are?”

“Immaterial. We are sexless in your sense, and can utilize whatever is offered.”

That had to be true, for the Polarian host he was now using was female.

“Then we shall be ready shortly,” she said.

“Excellent. Bring your ship into proximity so that we can use laser radio in case of emergency. Inform us when you’re ready.” He rolled away, going back to the transfer unit. Skot followed.

Melody decided to take a chance. “Llume, I propose to use you as you used my host. I shall set the discipline-box on you and ask you to guide this ship toward the Ace of Atoms. Do you object?”

“No,” Llume said. She went to the propulsion console while Melody tuned the box. The ship began to move. Melody watched the viewglobe. Already the fleet was fissioning into two clusters. About twice as many were moving toward the Andromedan nucleus as toward the Milky Way nucleus. How were they going to overcome a fleet that was twice their number? Her efforts had only been token; perhaps half a dozen additional ships salvaged.

The truce held. But the time the Ace of Swords joined the loyalist nucleus, Melody had six human volunteers, and had verified that they were indeed voluntary. The promise of bonus and special privileges had made them eager, and they were quite curious about the ship’s maneuvering and what was going on in officer country. They were also motivated by a genuine patriotism for their sphere, segment, and galaxy, once they understood the nature of the threat. They were, in short, good men.

Captain Mnuhl transferred six Knyfh officers into these willing hosts, and suddenly there was a sufficient and highly competent complement. They introduced themselves formally and moved efficiently to the key stations. It was evident from the outset that they were expert. Melody had no further concern about the technical operation of the ship, although she was a bit awed by the evidence that aliens had such a thorough working knowledge of the Solarian ship. They could not have drawn the information from the minds of their human hosts, because the humans knew next to nothing of these jobs. The Andromedans were quite right to view Segment Knyfh as their greatest obstacle to victory!

Her concern about the coming space battle was another matter. The ratio was holding: two hostage ships to each loyal one. Those four hundred hostages had really done their job. Soon the final tally was in: sixty-six hostage, thirty-three loyal. The hundredth ship had been blown up in the preliminary action.

The original cluster fleet: one hundred ships—like the one hundred cards of the Cluster Tarot deck. Probably only a partial coincidence. Had there been Trump ships along with the Suit ships—but that would have been stretching it too far! This ostentatious display of useless power, this show of segment unity that was the fleet, now it threatened the very existence of Imperial Outworld. What irony that this vanity of space was now to be used exactly for what it had been designed: destruction.

Two to one; how were they going to prevail against that force?

There was a Solarian game in Yael’s mind, an ancient system of shaped pieces on a checkered board, called chess. Here there were five types of pieces disposed to protect their King, each with its unique mode of operation. In the game of chess, position and strategy were more important than the individual value of the pieces; was that also true in space?

The net spoke: “Hammer of quadpoint.”

“I have expected your call, Hammer,” Mnuhl replied.

“We appear to have a decisive advantage. Your ships are outnumbered and underpersonnelled. No help can come to you in time to reverse this. We cannot allow you to return under arms to your segment capital. We shall proceed there ourselves, to place Outworld under siege and force capitulation of the segment government. We can accomplish this with half our present force. Indeed, we can accomplish it with a single ship. You therefore can gain nothing by forcing an engagement. We do not wish to destroy good ships unnecessarily, or to indulge in pointless hostilities. We therefore proffer you amicable terms in exchange for your surrender. The demolition of this section of the galaxy will not proceed immediately; you will be permitted to retire for the duration of your lives in planetary comfort, unmolested.”

“We must consult,” Mnuhl replied.

“I await your return call. Truce.”

Truce. Melody was reminded of Yael’s poem, “Four Swords.” But that had signified dissolution of whatever relationship had existed between the parties, a refusal to fit scripts. Now there was fleet truce between the grotesquely animated Swords and Atoms and Disks and Cups and Scepters. She wondered briefly how the ships of the fleet were numbered, as there were some twenty-seven Disks spread across three Spheres, Polaris, Nath, and Sador. There had to be some duplications. That broke down the analogy some more, and was perhaps a hopeful sign.

The Polarian host rolled in again. “You are the ranking Kirlian among us,” Mnuhl said to Melody. “Do you wish to assume fleet command?”

Melody was amazed. “I? Captain, I know nothing of command and less of space tactics!”

“The chain of command has little to do with space tactics. I myself am not even of your segment. I acted because I believed I was the only entity in a position to act, but I can not retain command here more than briefly. My first priority is to ascertain the appropriate admiral and invest that entity with authority over the loyal fleet. I would not have presumed to meddle in the affairs of an alien segment even to this extent were it not for the preemptive need of our galaxy.”

“But I haven’t the least idea how to direct a fleet or to conduct a battle. I’d walk into the first simple tactical trap the hostages set. I have already made many mistakes, and survived only by chance.”

Mnuhl’s Polarian voice resembled that of a patient instructor. Melody fancied she could hear the firmly remonstrative chords behind the frontal tune, though the Knyfh’s voice was actually filtered through his Polarian ball. “The years of direct commandorial supervision of battle are long over. What is required is a figure of unquestionable authority, who will designate deputies to handle the technical details.”

Melody began to understand. “Details—such as the conduct of the battle!”

“Correct. As admiral, you would maintain liaison with the enemy admiral, clarifying the rules of the situation, negotiating specific complications. The present truce is the result of the procedure developed in prior commands.”

It really was a functional system. Millennia of inter-species contacts had perfected such conventions on an intergalactic scale. Andromeda honored the same general set of rules. This brought a certain order out of what would otherwise be chaos. “Then—I could appoint you to handle the battle,” she said.

“Correct. It would not be presumptuous of me to act as your delegate. I have met you; I know you. There is no Kirlian entity to match you in my segment, and certainly not within this fleet. You are the natural commander, for you alone are unquestionably loyal; you alone cannot be rendered hostage. I urge you to assume the position of admiral—for the good of our galaxy.”

It was hard to decline a plea like that! Still, Melody hesitated. “Captain, I am not young and strong and bold, regardless of the way this host appears.” But suddenly she was conscious of the fact that the host was bruised and disheveled, with a bandage on the leg. “I am old, very near the termination of my natural life span. My judgment may be suspect. What will you do if I decline?”

“I will retain command, as I cannot be sure of the identity of other captains of this fleet. Given time I could locate one suitable, but the enemy will not permit us that time.”

Would the Drone of the Deuce of Scepters be suitable? Melody kept that thought in abeyance for now. “I mean, what would you do about Hammer of ::’s offer?”

“I see no alternatives except to yield or fight. Since by conventional wisdom our situation is untenable, we must yield.”

This, from the representative of a leading segment of the galaxy! Would the Drone see it the same way? “We can’t yield! It could mean the end of our galaxy! We have no idea how things are turning out in the other segments; we may be the only—”

“I have had reports via my incoming transfer officers. Segments Qaval and Weew are holding, while Segments Bhyo and Thousandstar are in deep—”

“I don’t want to hear it!” Melody screamed. “We can’t give up!” Was it that she could not bear to hear of the fall of wonderful Thousandstar, her budding fancy?

“The result may be the same if we fight. It would be best to reduce the destruction, trusting the Andromedans to grant us longer life than we should have otherwise. An entity like Hammer of :: would not have been granted high status among his kind had he not honor. If I command, I must do what seems reasonable to me. Perhaps your wisdom is other than conventional.”

“You bet your sweet notes it is!” But Melody still hesitated. She knew herself to be incompetent to run a ship, let alone a fleet, but she could not stand by and watch her galaxy go under. She had already faced that sort of compromise, and her reaction had not changed. “I’d rather gamble and lose,” she said, “than lose without gambling. I will assume command.”

“I will support you completely, though I may not privately agree with all your policies,” Mnuhl replied gravely. She could almost see his handsome face smiling —which was strange, because of course he had no face, either in this host or in his natural state. He did, however, have a handsome aura.

“Are you competent to handle the battle, despite your objection to it?” she asked him.

“I am competent to handle a conventional battle. But we shall surely lose it. Unless you have some innovative strategy.”

“Yes. Very well; let’s reply to Admiral Hammer.” Mnuhl transferred back to his own ship, and activated the net. “I regret the delay of consultation,” he said.

“Quite all right,” Hammer of :: replied with almost Solarian gruffness. “What is your decision?”

“I have yielded command of the loyalist forces to Melody of Etamin, who will answer you.”

Even through the computer mockup, the startled reaction was apparent. “Melody of Mintaka survives?”

“I survive,” Melody said. “As ranking Kirlian entity, I have assumed command of the Etamin fleet. I decline to accept your offer of amicable terms in exchange for surrender. Instead I offer you similar terms for your surrender.”

There was a snort of incredulous mirth—from Skot of Kade. It was exactly the sort of answer he would have made.

Hammer was too sophisticated to react emotionally. “Your response is noted; your offer is declined. This terminates our state of truce, subject to the standard period of grace. Do you agree to abide by the Intergalactic Conventions of Warfare?”

“I must consult,” Melody said. She turned off the net and spoke to Skot. “What’s this?”

“An assemblage of practical conventions,” he replied. “Individual ships are allowed to surrender when disabled beyond combat capability; equitable treatment for prisoners without unreasonable terms for release; sharing of hospital facilities in neutral zones; surrendered captains permitted to retain their commands on their own recognizance as noncombatants; no attacks made on fleet command ships—that sort of thing.”

“The ancient code of chivalry!” Melody exclaimed. “You have it all worked out so neatly, like a polite game.”

“Courtesy and accommodation are inherent in military space,” he agreed.

“Discordance!” Melody swore. “That’s not courtesy; that’s pusillanimity! The admirals don’t fire at each other, the ships quit when they get nicked. Certainly it cuts losses, but it also rules out unorthodox methods. We can’t win that way!”

Skot smiled wolfishly. “That’s right!”

Melody wondered whether Mnuhl would concur. She would soon find out! She reactivated the net. “Hammer, I decline to honor the Intergalactic Conventions of Warfare. Anything goes.”

The hostage seemed unperturbed. She wished she could see his face, though she didn’t even know what type of host he occupied; it might have no face. “As you prefer. Your ships shall be destroyed without quarter until such time as you yourself yield the remainder of your fleet.”

“Uh, wait,” Melody said. This Andromedan was one tough negotiator! She did not want to condemn all the loyal entities of her fleet to violent extinction. “Will you consider an alternate mode of settlement?”

“Identify it.”

“Single combat of champions.” That was straight out of the legends of Thousandstar! “One ship from each fleet.”

There was a pause. Good. At least Hammer’s mind was not a complete calculator! “Melody of Mintaka, your mind intrigues me. However, I must point out that a one-to-one ratio would not reflect the relative strengths of our fleets. I would consider a contest of two of our champions against one of yours.”

“The :: is right,” Melody muttered. “The contest has to reflect the fleets. I suppose that’s better than having dozens of ships and thousands of lives destroyed, though. If one of ours can’t take two of theirs, how can thirty-three of ours expect to take sixty-six of theirs?”

“Except we’re all sunk if our one ship loses,” Yael said. “And if they lose, how do we know they’ll honor it? They’re playing by the rules only because they’re winning.”

“There is that,” Melody agreed. “They talk of Intergalactic Conventions, but look at the way they took over their ships! Precious little honor in that! Any way we look at it, we’re in serious trouble.”

“Maybe one at a time…” Yael said.

“That’s it!” Aloud, Melody said: “Hammer, suppose we pit one of our ships against two of yours—in turn? If yours wins either match—”

“I personally am inclined to agree,” Hammer said. “I am extremely curious about the merits of individual types of fighting ships, as these are similar to ours of Andromeda. But I am constrained to point out two things: First, I do not believe I have authority to surrender a superior fleet, in the event your single ship had the fortune to prevail twice; my next-in-command might well have me deposed for treason to my galaxy. Second, individual combat does not necessarily reflect group-combat potential; the ship that wins singly might lose in a mass-action. I therefore must qualify this matter. I will send ships singly against yours in a line match, but will not permit my fleet to be bound by the result. The victor of each contest will meet the next ship from the other side. After a ship has won twice, it may retire from the field if it chooses, since limitations of fuel and ammunition prevent indefinite continuation. Each encounter will affect the strength of the fleets, however, and this might lead to renegotiation of terms after several actions. Should the first twenty victories be yours, your position would be considerably strengthened both on the field and in negotiations. But chance still gives us an advantage commensurate with our total force.”

“A remarkably cogent analysis,” Melody agreed. This entity was no dummy, unfortunately! “I shall honor the prior truce until the individual encounters desist.”

Privately, she discussed the matter with Skot. “Are you able to select a champion? I don’t know how the types of ships rate against each other.”

“No one knows how they rate against each other,” Skot replied. “Similar types exist in many segments. When one type demonstrates superiority, refinements are made in the others to counter it. There has been very little inter-Sphere conflict in the past few centuries. This would seem to be a unique opportunity to test the merits of design in the field, and the Andromedans are probably just as curious about it as we are. I would guess, however, that the competence of individual captains and crews is the decisive factor.”

“I wonder if a natural captain should do better than a hostage captain.”

He shrugged. “That, too, remains to be tested.”

“Then it’s up to my neuter intuition. Let’s survey what we have, first.”

The totals were not encouraging. There were six Solarian Swords including the flagship in the loyalist fleet, while the hostages had fourteen. Melody had seven Canopian Scepters to the hostages’ thirteen; the enemy also had two Wands of Mirzam and two Rods of Bellatrix. She had five Spican Cups to fourteen of the enemy’s, buttressed by three Chalices from Antares. There were ten loyalist Polarian Disks and nine Andromedan but three of the five Nath Disks were hostage, and both Coins of Sador. She fared best with the Atoms of Knyfh, having three of the four, but both Mintakan Atoms were hostage, a special indignity. No matter what type of ship was deemed best, she had no advantage.

“Let’s start with a Scepter,” she decided.

“The Canopians are certainly excellent craftscreatures,” Skot said. “They have inflexible will and responsive crews.”

“Because their crews are Slaves, accustomed for millennia to taking orders from insectoid Masters,” Melody said. But she remembered the Drone of the Deuce of Scepters, and relented. “We’ll send out the Deuce.”

She contacted the Drone on the net. “Yes,” he said, as if it were the only possible choice for such a mission.

The Scepter moved out of the fleet cluster, into the vacant space between the two forces. It was a rod with a ball on one end, like a cross between the handle of a Sword and the body of a small Disk. It traveled sidewise, maintaining its orientation to the sun. There was something so graceful, so elegant about that smooth progress that Melody hummed a chord of admiration, as well as her human vocal apparatus permitted. “Now if only it can fight!” she murmured fervently.

From the hostage fleet floated a Cup. It, too, maintained its attitude, the deep indentation toward the sun. It, too, was pretty as it spun. And surely it, too, could fight.

Suddenly her idea about the matching of champions seemed ludicrous. “I have to come up with something better than this!” Melody muttered. “Something. Anything!”

But her eyes remained on the globe. This horrible encounter was so important!

Melody had a general notion of the propulsion and weapons systems of segment spaceships, but that was all. She knew that most ships used mixed chemical and electric or “ion” drive, not atomic. Strict inter-Sphere conventions regulated the discharge of contaminants into navigable space, and radioactive substances were inevitably associated with atomics. Even the Atom ships were not atomic, ironically. So these ships were both “clean,” depending on chemical drive for emergency maneuvers, and on electric for steady acceleration.

Several needle scouts and satellite ships were accompanying each champion, but they hardly showed in the globe at this range. No fleet ship operated alone; the skilled use of extensible eyes and expendable defenses was crucial. The scouts zoomed close to the enemy, pinpointing its position and enabling the mother ship to home in its weaponry. A ship without its scouts was virtually blind. The very globe she peered into was a function of the Ace of Sword’s own satellites. But one tended to forget about the needles and shuttles, and to see the whole thing in terms of the single central ship.

“Skot,” Melody said. “My comprehension is imperfect. Will you stand by me and explain the match?” What she really wanted was the reassurance of his presence; she was afraid she had bargained the loyalist fleet into deeper trouble than before.

“Yes, Admiral,” Skot said. That startled her, but of course, though Llume had turned over the ship to him, Melody herself had assumed command of the entire fleet, so now ranked him.

“I need to understand the capacities and limitations of each type of ship. I don’t know whether I can come up with a winning strategy, but ignorance certainly won’t get me there.”

He did not comment. She watched the arena. The two ships moved together steadily, but not on a direct course; each followed a kind of curve. “Like two gunslingers walking down the street,” Yael said.

“Why don’t they fire?” Melody inquired aloud.

“The range is too great,” Skot explained. “Each employs a form of missile, and accuracy decreases with distance. Also, even an accurate shot from too far out could be avoided or intercepted by a needle. They must come close enough to strike without giving the other ship opportunity to maneuver clear. Wasted shots are trouble; each one represents a sizable investment of material and/or energy.”

“You make it very clear,” Melody said. And inwardly, to Yael: “It is like two gunslingers! They need to save their ammunition for when it counts.”

“Space opera,” Yael agreed.

Then, almost simultaneously, the two ships jerked in space, or at least they seemed to shiver in the viewglobe, which probably exaggerated the effect. “They both fired,” Skot said. “But neither will score. They’re still five thousand miles apart.”

Melody translated the figure into Mintakan units. “Why, that’s the diameter of a small planet!”

Skot smiled. “You get acclimatized to spatial distances. It is close, in terms of space. Normally ships within the fleet are separated by that amount, so they don’t get in each other’s way. To hit a target one mile thick from that distance requires an accuracy of one part in five thousand, which is about all a physical projectile from a moving ship is good for. Even when the missile travels at a hundred thousand miles per hour, it takes about three minutes to cover the distance. The target ship knows about the shot in a fraction of a second, so—”

“So it has three minutes to dodge,” Melody finished. “Yes, I understand, now. Five thousand miles is the fringe of the action range. Why did they fire so early, then?”

“Well, it is very hard to track a missile, and some of them have homing devices. So it is better to destroy the missile in flight; but it takes a lot of concentration. While the target ship is preoccupied with that, the attacking ship is coming closer, improving its chances for the next shot. So the first shot is not really wasted; it may facilitate the effective followup.”

“So they keep coming closer, until one scores on the other.”

“Approximately. The difference in weapons complicates this, though.”

“I thought you said they both fired missiles.”

“The Canopian Scepter uses proximity-explosive missiles, yes; a near-miss can shake the target and perhaps disable it. But the Spican Cup uses water bombs, otherwise known as nebula envelopment. The bomb explodes into a cloud of liquid that surrounds the target ship, cutting off its light-input, fouling its broadcast mechanism, interfering with its control over its satellites, and corroding its hull. A direct hit normally doesn’t kill the crew, but it leaves the ship helpless.”

“How clever,” Melody said with a shudder. “The Wand strikes physically, and the Cup pours water. We cannot escape the Tarot relevance.”

“I assumed the Tarot was patterned after the cluster fleet,” Skot said.

Typical ignorance! He knew a tremendous amount about space tactics and armament, and nothing about Tarot.

Now the two ships were quite close together, within a thousand miles. Melody knew that was approaching point-blank range for accuracy, and cut missile-avoidance time to thirty-six seconds or less. Was that enough, for a mile-thick ship? One or the other had to go!

The Cup squirted again. Immediately the Scepter used its chemical propulsion to jump aside. “It’ll never make it!” Skot cried. “It’ll have to maintain five or six gravities to clear its own diameter in that time—and it takes more than that to escape a cloud.”

Melody was too tense to ask for further explanation. She watched as the seconds passed.

There was a puff as the vapor-cloud formed, sooner than she expected. But it was not at the Scepter. “Premature formation!” Skot exclaimed. “What a break; some Cupper will be hung for that—”

Then the Cup exploded. A sudden new cloud developed, as its life-water puffed into vapor in the vacuum of space. The ship was through; none of the Spicans within it could have survived.

“What happened!” Melody demanded. “The Drone didn’t even fire!”

“I see it now,” Skot said, awed. “Very sharp tactics! The Scepter waited for the Cup to fire, then honed one of its needle scouts in on the missile. That set it off early. The Scepter accelerated to conceal its true defense, and to cover the recoil of its own firing. So the Cup didn’t catch on, and stood still for a direct missile hit. Beautiful!”

“Yet those are home galaxy entities, the great majority of them nonhostage crew,” Melody said, shuddering again. “All horribly dead of decompression.”

“That’s war,” he said. “They knew the risk when they signed on. We face the same risk.”

But the victory was scant comfort to Melody, who was thinking again of Captain Llono and their sudden mating. A whole shipful of unique triple-sexed Spicans, gone!

“There comes the second ship,” Skot said. “A Polarian Disk.”

No time for grief! The victorious Scepter now had to face a fresh enemy. “What’s the weapon of the Disk?”

“Polarians think in terms of circularity. All ships must spin at the rate of one revolution every five and a half Solarian minutes in order to maintain gravity at the comfortable level in the officer’s section. Slower for the Disks, of course, as they have larger diameters, but the principle’s the same. “If that spin is changed—”

“All hell breaks loose!” Melody finished. “How ingenious!”

“Circular,” Skot corrected her with a smile.

Melody looked around. The six human-hosted Knyfh officers were at the consoles, looking as competent as ever. She had little idea what they were doing, but she felt reassured. She returned to the globe. “But how can one ship change the spin of another?”

“Several ways. Generally, by anchoring a missile to the hull. A missile on a long line can exert considerable torque. Several can wreak havoc. The gravity changes make things fly about, and the crew gets sick, the instruments malfunction…”

“I can imagine. Trust Polaris to think of something like that.”

The two ships came together. The Scepter, having expended two missiles in the first encounter, was far more cautious this time. “They have only six missiles,” Skot explained.

“I told you!” Yael exclaimed. “A six-shooter!”

Melody closed her eyes. “I’ve doomed my friend the Drone of Deuce to destruction, then. Even if he wins every match, when he runs out of missiles—”

“Can’t ever tell. Canopians are pretty sharp, and they have nerves like tungsten. Maybe the other ship will run out of ammunition too, and it’ll be a standoff.”

A standoff. Was there a possibility there for stopping the hostage fleet? Get them all to use up their ammunition uselessly? How?

Melody liked this situation less as she came to know it better. Yet the alternative was to throw all her ships into the fray against twice their number. To replace single slaughter by mass slaughter.

The Disk fired. The Scepter maintained course, not even firing back. “He’s trying to intercept the anchor,” Skot said. “I don’t think that stunt will work again, though.”

The Disk fired again. Now the Scepter jetted—but not evenly. Instead of moving out of the way, it began to turn end over end. “Something’s wrong!” Melody cried.

“Drive malfunction,” Skot agreed. “That’s unusual in a Canopian ship; they’re finicky about details. But those chemical boosters are tricky when they’re hot. Only one side came on.”

The Scepter shook. It was only a token, magnified by the imaging mechanism of the globe, but it loomed like a planetquake to Melody’s nervous eyes.

“He’s anchored!” Skot cried as if feeling the shock of contact himself. “And he never even fired back!”

The Scepter shook again.

“Second anchor,” Skot said gloomily. “That’s the end.”

The Canopian ship twisted in space, tugged by two missiles on strings. The Disk moved in close. “But the ship has not been destroyed,” Melody said hopefully.

“They’ll set hull-borers on him, or inject poisonous gas,” Skot said. “A ship anchored is a ship vulnerable. The Scepter will yield in a moment; pointless to stretch out the agony.”

Then the Disk exploded.

Melody and Skot both gaped. “What happened?” Melody demanded to know, staring at the fragments of ship spreading outward.

Skot shook his head. “Sabotage, maybe. I can’t figure—”

Something clicked in Melody’s mind. Sabotage…

A Knyfh looked up from his console. “The anchors fastened on opposite sides of the Scepter,” he said. “Their vectors canceled out. A very pretty maneuver on the part of the Canopian.”

“That single jet!” Skot exclaimed. “That was deliberate! To twist the ship so that the anchor misplaced. It seemed like a malfunction…”

“So the Drone won with a single missile this time,” Melody said wonderingly. “But he’s playing it extremely close!”

“He has to. With three missiles left, and the entire fleet of Andromeda before him…”

But now the hostage fleet’s sole Knyfh Atom came out of the enemy cluster. Melody sighed. “Poor Drone… I have sentenced him to death.”

“We have the right to recall him; he has fought two battles,” Skot pointed out.

Melody activated the net. “Deuce of Scepters, you have completed your assignment. Retire from the field.”

“Message declined,” the Drone replied.

Skot stretched his mouth in a way that certain Solarians had to express mixed surprise and respect. “He’s staying in the lists! That must be some entity!”

“He is that,” Melody agreed. “I suppose technically this is mutiny, but I’d hesitate to call it that. I have a personal interest in his welfare, and I suppose he feels he owes me something. We’ll just have to let him perform. He certainly has done well so far.”

The Atom and the Scepter drew close together. This time the Scepter fired first.

“He doesn’t dare get within magnetic range,” Skot explained.

“True,” a Knyfh officer agreed. The involvement of a Knyfh ship seemed to have excited their interest. The Knyfh contingent had the best record for loyalty in this fleet—another testimony to the formidability of the segment.

The Atom narrowed the distance, unaffected. “Its repulsive magnetic force makes the missiles shy away,” Skot said. “You have to get very close to score with a physical missile on an Atom—and then you’re in its power if you miss.”

The Scepter fired again, without effect. “Only one chance left,” Skot said. “If the Scepter can loose a missile just as the Atom starts its pull-phase—there!”

The ships drew together more quickly. Then suddenly they reversed. There was an explosion. “The Atom out-timed him,” Skot said sadly. “The missile didn’t make it before the field reversed. Now Knyfh will shake Canopus apart.”

Sure enough, the two ships drew together, then apart, then together again. “But the Atom is shaking itself as badly as its opponent,” Melody said.

“The Atom is constructed to take it,” Skot said. “That nucleus and shell system, cushioned by magnetism—you could just about throw it against the wall and it would bounce.”

“Like Slammer,” Melody said gloomily, and the magnet bobbed behind her, thinking she was addressing it.

“Tougher than Slammer. You can hardly hurt a Knyfh by concussion.”

Melody remembered how readily Captain Mnuhl had stopped Slammer, just as a Solarian with a club might handle an Earth-planet canine. If the hostages had been no more successful with the main fleet of Segment Knyfh than they had been with this small contingent, the loyalists would have a three-to-one advantage, and that segment would be secure. Perhaps it would then send out more aid to the other segments, and the Milky Way would be saved. So she was not disappointed to witness the power of the Atom, but, oh, why did it have to be demonstrated on the Deuce of Scepters?

No miracle strategy saved the Drone this time. He was finished. Finally the Atom hurled the Scepter away. It turned end over end, obviously dead. Andromeda had won this one. “Poor Drone,” Melody said again, feeling the tears in her eyes. “I wish…”

“Let the Sword of Sol avenge him,” Skot suggested. “The Four is with us; that’s a bold ship…”

“Four of Swords to the lists,” Melody said into the net. And privately to Skot: “I hope you’re right. If I had any better way to stave off Andromeda…”

The Four of Swords moved out immediately, as if it had been expecting the call. Melody couldn’t help experiencing a particular quickening of interest. She was aboard the Ace of Swords; just how good a ship was this type?

Sword and Atom moved toward each other. “Why don’t any of these ships maneuver more?”

“It wastes energy and fouls up their spin,” Skot said. “It’s hard to turn a spinning ship in space; precession sets in and fouls it up. Better to orient on the target and knock it out fast, and only dodge when you have to.”

Melody again visualized the two gunslingers of Yael’s imagination walking toward each other. Dodging bullets was hardly worthwhile; better to shoot fastest and best. Yet she felt somehow disappointed. The contest seemed to lack flair.

The Atom exploded, startling her. “The Sword didn’t even strike, did it?”

“Lasers don’t make recoil,” Skot said. “It was firing as soon as it got within the five-second range; and it scored before the Atom could get hold of it. A laser strike in the right place can fission an Atom.”

Melody smiled, but Skot wasn’t joking. He spoke with deep pride. Then she looked again at the fragmented ship of Knyfh, and shuddered. No joke at all! Captain Mnuhl was aboard an Atom. If Swords took Atoms so easily— the enemy fleet had over twice as many Swords as the loyalists did.

Now a Scepter came out from the Andromedan mass. Melody bit her human lip nervously. She had already seen what a Scepter could do! Somehow she had to stop this destructive exhibition. Thousands of sapient lives were being lost, and for what purpose? Why had Galaxy Andromeda ever set out to take what it had no right to— the binding energy of the Milky Way! Andromeda was surely wrong, and there had to be some way to stop it, to chain the lady and make her behave. Even these ships she used had been pirated from the Milky Way’s own fleets, taken hostage…

That was it! She had assumed that the counterhostage effort had to be completed before the battle began. But the enemy was actually more vulnerable now than it had been before. With proper strategy, she could destroy its fleet without the loss of any more of her own ships.

“I have to go see Captain Mnuhl,” she said, rising. “You keep an eye on things here; don’t let on to the net that I’m gone.”

Skot nodded. She hurried to the transfer unit, and a Knyfh officer activated it. She landed in the same host she had had before, and in a moment met with Mnuhl.

“I declined to honor the Galactic Convention,” she reminded him. “Does that mean there are no rules to break?”

“Anything, as you Etamins put it, goes,” Mnuhl agreed. “However, while the individual contests are in progress, we are under an understood truce.”

“Yes, of course,” she signaled. “But when that truce ends…”

“Only the practical laws of physics prevail,” Mnuhl said. “No, I must qualify that. I would not condone treachery—”

“Nothing like that! Here is what I have in mind.” And while she kept one perceptor current attuned to the Knyfh equivalent of the viewglobe, tracking the single combat of champions, she described her plan.

“That is legitimate,” Mnuhl agreed at last. “I shall implement it the moment truce abates. I compliment you on an innovative strategy.”

“It is a desperation strategy,” Melody said. “I can’t stand to see—”

The Scepter exploded. The sudden burst of magnetism made her shield blanch.

“One of its own missiles detonated before it fired,” Mnuhl remarked. “Exceedingly apt laser accuracy at that range.”

“The Sword of Sol strikes again!” Melody said, pleased in spite of her horror. She was slowly getting acclimatized to this sudden, massive killing. “That’s four to one, our favor. Do you think our management is better than theirs?”

“It may be,” Mnuhl pulsed. “A hostage probably is not as efficient or motivated as a natural entity or volunteer transferee. This could throw judgment off, make close decisions harder, gunnery less accurate, encourage errors under stress. I would not wish to take an examination in marksmanship with a hostile or insane host dephasing my surface.”

“So maybe that two-to-one ship advantage of theirs is not so much as they think,” Melody returned. “I’d better get back to my ship.” She rolled to the transfer unit, and in a moment was back in Yael. She hurried to the control room.

“We won the last,” Skot announced. “But now they’re sending out another Sword.” He licked his lips. “Sword against Sword!”

“You seem to enjoy the prospect.”

He looked embarrassed. “At least this is fair play. If our handling is better, this will show it.”

“I suppose it will,” Melody agreed. “Skot, please get in touch with the crew’s quarters and get some more volunteers. They’d better have Kirlians of at least two. Make sure they understand that this will be dangerous, uncomfortable work—but extremely important.”

He looked curiously at her and left after a last glance at the viewglobe. Melody knew he wanted to watch this particular match, but her other project was more pressing. She could have set it up herself, but if Hammer of :: called her on the net while she was away he might catch on that she was up to something.

The two Swords approached each other, and again she watched compulsively. While she hated this destruction and loss of sapient life and the emotions it roused in her, she was nevertheless fascinated by the competitive aspect. All sapient species were highly competitive, she thought; that was how they got to be sapient. Every Spherical species lusted for death and glory, however much individuals disguised it with the veneer of civilization. If even an old neuter like herself felt the urges, what of the young males?

The hostage Sword fired first. Melody had learned to interpret the flash on the globe. It could not be a direct glimpse, for that would mean the laser had struck her own ship; but there was always some trace leakage and refraction that the instruments could pick up and amplify. Lasers were designed to diffuse with distance, so that those that missed their targets were not a menace to other ships of their own fleets. Missiles were also detonated or defused automatically after a certain number of minutes, for the same reason.

The hostage bolt missed. Now the Four of Swords fired —and scored. There was a bright splay of light as the globe amplified the reflecting beam. But though struck, the hostage was not dead. The trouble with lasers, she realized, was that unless they struck a vulnerable section, they didn’t do much damage. It took several scores to put away an opponent, and in that time the enemy might reverse the advantage by a good or lucky shot of his own.

So there really was no inherently superior weapon, she concluded. The lasers had speed and range, being impossible to avoid or intercept, but no punch. The missiles had plenty of punch, but could be dodged or triggered prematurely. The magnetic fields were fast and could not be avoided, but their range was short. So it all came out even, with a good sharp ship of any type able to overcome a sloppy one of any other type. Chance was a considerable factor. Ideally, ships should fight in sets, with a Sword to snipe long distance and an Atom to handle any enemy ship that tried to move in close, and—but that led right back to the present mixed-composition fleet.

The two Swords were very close now, within a thousand miles of each other. Both were firing and scoring, but neither was disabled. In moments one of them would die, though both had been built in the shipyards of Sphere Sol and were crewed primarily by Solarians. Whoever won, Solarians would die. Friend was killing friend.

Suddenly her sickness of it all overcame her. “Call it off!” she cried aloud. “I can’t stand this ritual slaughter!”

But Skot was away on his assignment, the Knyfh officer had other jobs, and the net was off. She was talking to herself. Her hand went out to activate the net—and she saw the hostage ship explode. Its air gouted out. Though the hull remained almost intact, the ship was dead.

Then the same thing happened to the Four of Swords.

Both had been destroyed… seconds before she had been able to call a halt. “Damn my indecision!” she cried, gritting her teeth. Her host’s leg started hurting again, and she felt very tired.

Now she activated the net. “Melody of Mintaka here,” she said. “Terminate the contests of champions. Abate truce.”

The sixty-six-thirty-three ratio of hostage to loyal ships had shifted to sixty-one-thirty-one; an improvement, but still highly disadvantageous. Would the Andromedan command have gone along with the one-to-one battles much longer?

“Truce terminated,” Hammer of :: said. “Intergalactic Conventions not in force.”

Skot hurried up. “I have the volunteers. What’s this about terminating the truce?”

“We are about to get down to the real combat,” she told him. “In fact, let’s give our project a code name, so we don’t have to risk enemy interception of the details. Call it… call it the Lan of Yap.”

Skot looked at her strangely. “I don’t even know what the program is.”

“That’s all right. Transfer over to the Ace of Atoms and tell Captain Mnuhl to implement the Lan of Yap. He’ll understand.”

Skot hesitated, then departed again. But Melody’s eyes were still fixed on the two drifting, leaking hulks, the Swords of Sol. She shook her head. What a waste!

16. Lan of Yap

*progress report*

:: proceed ::

*the following segments have fallen: lodo, bhyo, fa¿, novagleam progress in freng and thousandstar continued resistance in qaval, etamin, knyfh and weew*

:: knyfh and weew I comprehend they are center galaxy cultures, sophisticated lodo is a surprise I thought it would be another center of resistance, and perhaps bhyo too instead we encounter trouble in the lesser regions! what is there about qaval and etamin? ::

*they are centers of the cult of tarotism, said to have originated in etamin prior to the first war their spheres orient on tarot symbolism, and the name of qaval derives from qabalah*

:: does this cult study transfer science? ::

*not as such but it makes use of animation*

:: that relates prepare reserves ::

*POWER*

:: CIVILIZATION ::

“That’s some strategy!” Skot said as he returned. “Mnuhl gave me the details.”

“I thought he would,” Melody said. “Now let’s review. Each Knyfh ship has a long-range transfer unit aboard, but three of the four Atoms stayed loyal, and the fourth was destroyed in single combat. So the chances are they can’t do it back to us.”

“They would have removed the transfer unit to another ship before risking it in single combat,” Skot pointed out. “Mnuhl says it would have to be on one of the two Mintakan vessels, as Knyfh transfer units do not operate outside an Atom-type ship. Something about the magnetic fields—”

“May my Sphere by sundered by a sour note!” Melody swore. “I’d like to get into one of those ships and find out what happened.”

“Mintakan Atoms are pretty much like other ships of the fleet,” Skot said mildly. “They even have a few magnets. Some spheres won’t touch magnets, but Mintaka feels they go well with the type of ship. So probably their capture by the hostages was just the luck of the draw. And since the secret of hostaging remains in Galaxy Andromeda, we shouldn’t have much to fear from that particular unit.”

Melody touched his hand. “You are more generous to my Sphere than I am.” She returned to business. “Now we have four transfer units, and your volunteers should be arriving soon. Best to have Solarians for the Swords and Spicans for the Cups.”

“Yes. And if I may suggest, we should first initiate distractive action, so that the enemy will not be aware of our real thrust.”

“Yes, of course! What do you have in mind?”

“A conventional long-range bombardment. If we reset our ships’ missiles for fixed-range detonation, they will explode among the ships of the hostage fleet. It is highly unlikely that any will score, but it would resemble an attack.”

“Good enough,” Melody agreed, though she was concerned about the waste of irreplaceable munitions. “We can time our Lan of Yap effort to coincide with the arrival of the first missiles.” She glanced across the room, her eye attracted by the arrival of four crew members. “Do they understand this will be hazardous?”

“They do,” Skot said.

“I shall make sure,” Melody said. She beckoned them over. Two were female Solarians, but of course she had known that crews were of mixed sexes. Single-sex confinements were unhealthy for a double-sexed species, especially for prolonged tours in space.

“You are about to become transfer agents, which is what I already am,” Melody said. “You will transfer to available voluntary hosts aboard the enemy ships. You will acquaint the members of these crews with the fact that their ships are controlled by enemy officers. You will incite mutiny, which will really be a restoration of management to the proper authorities. If you are unable to take over a ship, you will sabotage it so that it is unable to fight. I estimate your chances of surviving this mission are less than fifty percent. However if this tactic does not work, the chances of the Ace of Swords surviving are also less than fifty percent. You may now withdraw from this assignment if you so choose.”

She looked at each, but no one withdrew.

“We know the fleet is in bad trouble; Officer Skot briefed us,” one of the men said. “That’s why we’re here.”

Suddenly Melody recognized him. “Gary!” He was the man who had taken her out to fix the light-collector trough, hullside.

“I qualify,” he said defensively. “My Kirlian aura is two point five.”

“Yes, of course.” She could not exclude him simply because she knew him. “Do you realize what happens to you if the hostages discover what you’re up to?”

“The same thing that happens to our whole galaxy if the Andromedans win,” he replied evenly.

Melody nodded. “If you do manage to take over your ship, try to conceal that fact from the hostage command. When you hear the code phrase ‘Lan of Yap’ on the fleet net, identify—”

Gary snorted with laughter. “Lan of Yap!” Then he was contrite. “Sorry, sir.”

Melody smiled. “Don’t be. I picked a code name that no hostage would understand, and that every crewman would appreciate. I am aware of its original meaning.”

“Yes, sir,” Gary said, trying to keep his face straight.

“When you hear that phrase, if you are in control of your ship, identify yourself on the net and fire on any neighbor-ship that has not similarly identified itself. Then try to disengage from that fleet. Do you understand?”

“Yes. We do not want our recovered ships firing on each other.”

“Hit and run,” one of the women said.

Melody smiled. “If you rejoin our fleet, we will have you transferred back to your own bodies.”

She turned back to Skot. “Take them to the transfer unit and send them through in rapid order on my signal. Good luck!”

The volunteers marched out. Melody shook her head. “I am probably sending them to their deaths,” she said. “But we can be sure the crews of the hostage ships are loyal, and if they’ll just believe the truth, they’ll act. An average of four hostage officers on each ship can’t stop a crew of a thousand! If we can take over or nullify even ten hostage ships without Admiral Hammer knowing it, it may tip the scales in our favor.”

“I know,” Yael said. “I sure hope it works. I wish I could go myself.”

There was a delay while she organized the details with Captain Mnuhl and made sure the other ships had their volunteers ready. A contingent of Lan of Yap transferees were to make a special effort to recover the two Mintakan vessels. Shuttles carried volunteers from all the Spheres to the four ships with transfer units, so that there were enough to send at least one agent to each hostage ship.

“Bombardment commenced,” Mnuhl announced on the net. The hostages would overhear this, but it didn’t matter since it was only a distraction. It didn’t even matter if Admiral Hammer fired back, so long as he didn’t know what was going on. Maybe he was laughing over-confidently at this seemingly ludicrous ploy. But his thinly spread hostage officers would hardly be paying much attention to what was going on in the depths of the crew quarters…

The missiles started exploding. But there was no apparent damage, and the enemy did not return fire. Admiral Hammer was biding his time, refusing to be shaken or to waste ammunition.

More time passed. Under Mnuhl’s directions, the loyalist fleet shifted about, getting into battle formation, but not approaching the enemy. Admiral Hammer must really be wondering!

How was Gary doing? The girls? The other Sphere volunteers? Were they getting through to the crews of the hostage ships? How would it show? Captain Mnuhl was giving them ten minutes: not much time to infiltrate and take over a ship.

There was one positive sign: All of the volunteers had been transferred successfully. That meant they had found willing hosts. Surely the crews were aware that something was going on; they should be ready to listen.

“Do you really think it’ll work?” Yael asked worriedly.

“You know I’m afraid it won’t,” Melody told her. “You can feel the courses of doubt washing all through our nervous system.”

“Yes. But Gary is pretty competent, and Skot—”

“Skot! He’s not going out there!”

“Yes, he is,” Yael said. “I got to know him while you were buzzing around the fleet. He’s a man of action.”

Melody spoke into the ship’s circuit. “Skot of Kade report.”

“Admiral, he has transferred,” a voice replied.

“Then who in the orchestra is talking now?”

“Bnalm of Knyfh, sir. It was necessary to have an officer take over in the Solarian’s stead.”

“I told you,” Yael put in.

Melody closed her eyes. “Oh, Skot, you just had to get in on the action!” she muttered, pained. “But I needed you here.”

Llume approached. “Skot knew that a high-Kirlian entity would have a better chance of getting through than a low one, and his officer’s expertise would enable him to operate the ship more effectively. I would like to go also.”

“Llume, you know you’re a prisoner of war! Even if I could trust you aboard an Andromedan ship, it would be unethical—”

“I am a Slash,” Llume said.

“Precisely. An Andromedan—” Melody paused. “Oh. You mean you honor the Lot of *?”

“I could readily disable a hostage ship.”

“No,” Melody said firmly. “You will not turn traitor to your galaxy on my account.”

Llume retreated. Melody tried to analyze the strong emotion she felt, but was interrupted by Captain Mnuhl’s announcement on the net. “Lan of Yap.”

Tensely, Melody watched the viewglobe. Nothing happened. But of course it would take a moment for the agents to react, assuming they had completed their takeovers. To orient on the other ships, to make their announcements…

The net erupted. “Trey of Swords—Milky Way.” “Fourteen of Cups—Milky Way.” Then a jumble of voices.

Suddenly there was firing in the hostage fleet. It seemed to have turned on itself, with ships battling each other at point-blank range.

“Phenomenal success!” Mnuhl’s exultant voice came over the net. Melody had supposed Knyfhs lacked emotions, but of course she was wrong about that too. “Three… four… six ships blasted! Seven!”

“Like a chain of fireworks!” Yael exclaimed. “There’s another—and another!”

“It worked!” Melody said unbelievingly. “It actually worked!”

“I must admit I had reservations,” Mnuhl said. She could barely distinguish his voice amid the melee of communications, but the proximity of his ship gave him an advantage. “I anticipated perhaps two ships inactive. But now we have ten inactive! Hammer was caught completely offguard!”

“He was deceived by the nonmilitary mind,” Melody murmured, still hardly believing it herself. Yet the evidence was before her. Hard-hitting Hammer had never thought of resubversion.

“Analysis,” Mnuhl said. “Initial optimism exaggerated. Ten enemy ships destroyed, but this does not indicate that a similar number have been retaken. Some may have fired upon two or more neighbors. Projected losses to enemy, all factors; sixteen vessels.”

“They lost five before,” Melody said. “That brings them down to forty-five, against our thirty-one. We’re gaining on them.”

“Yes, certainly,” Mnuhl agreed. “It was a tactical masterstroke. But we remain at a disadvantage. We have merely culled their most vulnerable units, and they still outnumber us.”

Now a separation took place in the enemy fleet. “Our retakes are drawing apart, as directed,” Melody said. “Six ships.”

“An apparent loss of ninety percent of our transfer agents,” Mnuhl reminded her. “Considering the success, a favorable ratio.”

A favorable ratio! Was Skot of Kade among the statistics of acceptable loss? Gary? The two young women? The other gallant Knyfhs and Polarians and Canopians and Spicans?

“Recoveries are being pursued,” Mnuhl reported.

“Can we help them?”

“Only by closing upon the enemy fleet.”

“Do it, then. They took a terrible risk for us; we can do the same for them.” Then, conscious that the enemy could overhear this dialogue, she stopped talking on the net.

Llume rolled near again. “You can help them only by distraction,” she said. “They will be subject to the fire of the enemy for some time.”

“No, we can surround our six ships and protect them,” Melody said. “The hostages won’t be able to—” But then she realized what the problem was. It took a lot of energy to accelerate, and a lot to decelerate a huge spaceship. The six fleeing ships had a head start, but the pursuing hostage fleet would be in phase with them. The loyalist fleet, approaching from the opposite direction, could pass right through both the six and the forty-five without having any protective effect.

The Ace of Swords began to move, the chemical acceleration pressing Melody sidewise. She suffered vertigo; now she could not decide which way was down. Her command seat held her in place, however.

Llume had no problem; she merely tilted on her wheel to match the new vector and stayed in place.

“Well, at least we have six more ships,” Melody said. “Counting those recoveries, we shall have thirty-seven to their forty-five. That’s not such a bad ratio.”

“Not such a good ratio either,” Llume warned her. “By this time Admiral Hammer will have rounded up some captive transferees and will know everything they know. He will rout out any others remaining in his fleet and try to use them against you. If he retains a transfer unit—”

“Sour grapes,” Yael said. “You thought of a good tactic, so everyone says it doesn’t count.”

Sour grapes: another Solarianism. Melody traced down the imagery. Grapes were succulent fruits of Sphere Sol that developed on vines. When ripe, they were sweet, suitable for consumption. A carnivore was said to have desired some grapes, but found them to be out of reach. A carnivore? Such a creature consumed flesh, not fruit. There must be a confusion.

The other Polarian host appeared. It was Captain Mnuhl. “There will soon be battle,” he said. “Ships will be lost, and we may become unable to remain in contact. I think it wise to employ the Knyfh cluster-charge. This is a generalized magnetic field similar to the net that poses no threat to individual ships, but will tend to draw derelicts in to a common center. This will facilitate rescue of personnel in the absence of Intergalactic Convention.”

“By all means,” Melody said. “We shall want to save any entities we can, from any ships—ours or theirs. The great majority of entities are ours, and there is information we’ll want from any hostages we might capture.”

He made a glow of agreement and departed.

The two fleets accelerated toward each other, the six repossessed ships between. Melody was pleased to note that one of the six was Mintakan. Had they recovered the missing transfer unit, or had it been destroyed? She wished she could be sure it was not operating in the remaining enemy Atom. Llume had made a good point there.

In the globe it seemed as if the six ships would be crushed between the converging masses of the two main fleets, but she knew that they were mere dust motes in the hugeness of space. With an average separation between ships of five thousand miles, there would be no collisions. What seemed like masses in the globe were actually diffuse clouds in space.

What she could see in her globe, the Andromedans could see in theirs. When the Ace of Swords got close enough to fire on the enemy, the enemy Swords would be close enough to fire on the Ace. Suddenly she had a queasy feeling; she felt incompetent to handle it. She wanted to turn command of the ship over to Skot for the action, and of course could not, and not merely because he was gone. The hero-fool! She envied him.

“Coming into range of enemy vessels, sir,” a Knyfh officer said. “Seven of Cups, followed by Ten of Disks.”

What should she do? She had no experience at this sort of thing! Was that why Captain Mnuhl had made his last personal check, to see how she was taking the prospect of coming under fire herself? He should have stayed a little longer, and he would have seen her dissolve!

“Fire as appropriate,” Llume murmured against Melody’s arm. “No need to give specifics to an experienced space officer.”

Bless her! “Fire as appropriate!” Melody said loudly. A weight lifted from her, and she felt better. Part of it was physical, because of decreased acceleration, but the rest was internal. She had not shown her indecision, except to Llume, who had not given her away.

“Something about those ships,” Yael said. “The Ten of Disks…”

Ships were firing all about them. In the globe a Sword exploded; was it friend or enemy? A Cup sprang a leak. A Wand went dead—maybe. A terrible carnage, and how was it possible to know who was benefiting?

The Seven of Cups loomed close. Melody saw the Knyfh laser cannoneer orienting on it, centering it on his crosshairs screen. She knew he would not miss.

“The Ten of Disks!” she exclaimed, Yael’s comment registering at last. “That’s Admiral Hammer’s ship!”

Llume straightened up. “So it is! I should have realized. That is a preemptive target.”

“Don’t I know it!” Melody said. Then, to the Knyfhs: “Orient on the Ten of Disks. Blast it out of space. Ignore the Cup.”

The excellent Knyfh officers responded immediately, making no argument. The Seven of Cups drifted away from the cross-hair focus as the ship reoriented, and the Ten of Disks drifted in.

The view in the globe faded out. “Hey!” Melody exclaimed in annoyance. “This instrument’s malfunctioning!”

“We have been enveloped by a cloud from the Seven of Cups,” a Knyfh reported. “Visual interference, corrosion of lenses proceeding.”

She had made them ignore the cup, just when they had been about to blast it! Why had she interfered?

The view resumed. “Only caught the fringe of it,” Melody said, relieved.

“The corrosion proceeds,” the Knyfh said tersely. “Repair crew: replace external lenses. Verify other damage.”

Now the blips in the globe were fogging. The cloud projected by the Cups was large and diffuse, able to envelope a ship traveling rapidly, and its initial effect was momentary. But once the corrosive agent coated the external appurtenances, it kept acting after the ship had shot clear of the cloud. A Sword whose lenses were fogged lost its offensive punch, and one whose communications and perceptions were fouled would have trouble avoiding other attacks.

“Solar vanes coated, bearing fouled,” the Knyfh reported, reading his indications. “Reduce power draw.”

Immediately the internal illumination dimmed, as the systems cut power. It was not wise to draw on the reserves unnecessarily.

There was a wrench that would have knocked Melody from her chair had she not been hanging on. Her stomach writhed within the cavity of her torso.

“We have been secured by a contra-rotation anchor,” the Knyfh reported. “Repair crews: preemptive mission— disengage anchor.”

Melody knew the ship was in trouble. Blinded and muzzled by the Cup cloud (result of her folly!), and now hooked by an anchor from the enemy flagship, this Sword was helpless unless the repair crews could free it quickly. Already she felt the vertigo of a shift in gravity.

There was another wrench. “Second anchor attached,” the Knyfh announced, showing no emotion.

“Can the same crew take off both anchors?” Melody asked.

The officer was silent.

Llume had wrapped her tail around Melody’s bolted-down chair. Now she unwound so that she could speak. “The repair crew is gone,” she explained gently. “They were on the hull when the second anchor struck—”

“Oh, no!” Melody cried. “Knocked into space by the impact!”

“It will not be possible to free the ship of the anchors now,” Llume continued. “I wish to have your release.”

“Release?” Melody was having trouble thinking clearly.

“Your forgiveness. Expiation. For the wrong I have done you. Before we die.”

“We aren’t going to die!” Melody snapped. “If you really want to help, come with me.” And she pushed herself from the chair.

“Admiral, what is your intent?” an impassive Knyfh officer inquired.

“I intend to round up a crew and free this ship of anchors!”

“That is not feasible,” the Knyfh said. “It is necessary to abandon ship.”

Melody halted, maintaining her balance precariously in the face of the shifting gravity. “Abandon ship! Ridiculous!” The music of challenge and irritation rang in her mind. There were times when the lack of her Mintakan body severely hindered her expression. A couple of strikes on the ship, no real damage done, and they were all ready to quit! “You had better have most chordant reason.”

“Our ship is disabled, therefore vulnerable to further enemy attack,” the Knyfh said with the same infuriating calm. Melody couldn’t even be sure it was the same one she had talked to before; behind the varied faces of the human hosts, they were half a dozen faceless competencies. “A missile or beam can hole the hull momentarily, and our handicapped repair systems may not be able to act in time. The corrosive acid itself may penetrate the hull, causing loss of atmosphere. The probability of loss of life-support prior to successful de-anchoring and necessary repairs is sixty percent according to established tables of risk.

“This ship has lifecraft capable of removing the entire crew promptly, so that another ship can pick them up. The probability of salvaging ninety percent of personnel prior to loss of life-support is eighty percent. Our chances are therefore approximately twice as good if we abandon ship. Therefore, according to the galactic manual, we must signal derelict status and vacate. No enemy will fire on us in this circumstance.”

A completely reasonable lecture—from the military view.

“But then we could still repair—” Melody started. The Knyfh’s frozen expression showed her that was useless. To signal disablement falsely would violate the military code of honor, and these veteran officers would not do it. Strange (though perhaps only to her nonmilitary view) how very similar the military minds were to each other, despite gross difference in physical format. A magnetic entity shaped like a model atom had treated her to the exact line of reasoning a Solarian or Mintakan officer would have! Yet she could not blame these officers; in fact, she knew that in this instance they were right and she was wrong. Had she only kept her mouth shut and let them blast the Cup first, the Ace of Swords might not be in this predicament. “We aren’t derelict until we signal?” she inquired instead.

“Not officially. It would be wise to signal promptly, so that we will not be fired upon again.”

“Don’t signal,” she said. “We’ll repair ship instead.”

“Admiral, the manual—”

Melody blew out an obscene note. But again, it didn’t work, in this host. “All right! Explain the situation to the crew, and evacuate all who want to go. But don’t signal. I’m going to stay here and repair this ship alone if I have to, and use it to finish the battle.”

“You’re absolutely crazy!” Yael said admiringly.

“This is not feasible,” the Knyfh insisted. “Do you desire a detailed analysis?”

“No! I’m sure reason is all on your side. But we aren’t fighting a reasonable battle, we’re defending our galaxy. If we lose here, we lose our segment, and if we lose that—”

“That may be. But your proposal is likely to accelerate that loss.”

“I’m still Admiral!” she screamed. “You handle your job, Transfer back to your segment, and leave me alone!” And she proceeded out of the control room, angling to counter the slant of the deck. Hardly a gallant exit!

Llume followed. “I join you, if I may.”

When friends deserted, support by the enemy was welcome! “You may.”

But Llume halted. “It is necessary to bring the discipline-box. Once I pass out of its range…”

“That box became inoperative when ship’s power was cut,” Melody said. “Didn’t you notice?”

“You should not take the risk.”

“If you want your freedom, get on a lifeboat,” Melody snapped. “I can’t use you unless you’re with me all the way.” And she moved on, Slammer following.

“You have the courage of a fool,” Llume said, spinning her wheel in her haste to catch up.

“That is a compliment to a Tarot fanatic.”

They entered one of the long stem-to-stern access-halls. Motion was awkward because the anchors were still slowing the ship’s rotation. The decline was jerky, as first one strand went taut, then the other, then both together. This threw them against the walls, bashing into the metal handholds. The passage was in the inner section of the ship, positioned to facilitate efficient transport by reducing gravity—and gravity itself was diminishing erratically.

“Like a crazy house!” Yael said, enjoying it.

Crazy house; but Melody did not need to delve for the underlying concept. Any species capable of enjoying disorientation like this was crazy!

Slammer shot off down a side passage. “That’s not the route!” Melody called. But it was soon out of sight in the dusk. The reduced power made a twilight zone of the entire ship, giving the passages an eerie quality.

“Slammer probably needs stoking,” Yael said.

Good guess. Melody had snatched bites to eat along the way, hardly consciously; the crew stewards, like the Slaves of Sphere Canopus, were very obliging. But she hadn’t thought about the magnets. “We’ll wait a few minutes,” she said aloud. “Slammer will return.”

“He can readily locate us,” Llume pointed out. “The loss of the ship’s power has no effect on magnets.”

Melody nodded. She was tired and hurting again, but she didn’t have to manufacture pretexts to rest! “I’m not thinking straight. Of course you’re right. We’ll go on.”

“Permit me,” Llume said, twining her tail around Melody’s torso. For a moment Melody resisted; if Llume were going to do her harm, the absence of the magnet would make this the ideal time. But then she felt the aura, so very like her own. The most compatible sister-aura she had ever encountered. How could she distrust an aura like that?

She yielded. The Polarian form, adapted to balance, was much better suited to this mode of travel than the Solarian form. Llume picked Melody up and accelerated down the hall. The added weight restored the wheel’s traction against the deck.

Then Melody heard the whine of a rapidly traveling magnet. She looked back, and there was Slammer, gaining on them. He had a satellite: Beanball. “Of course!” Melody exclaimed, relieved. “We couldn’t leave the baby alone in that cabin!”

The group continued on down the length of the ship— and almost collided with a group of crewmen who emerged suddenly from a side passage.

“Sirs, the evacuation route is this way,” one said, saluting.

“We know,” Melody said. “We are going to remove the anchors.”

The crewmen did a doubletake. “Sir… weren’t you… ah, informally… hullside with Gary’s team?”

“You were on that job?” Melody asked as Llume set her down.

“No, sir. It’s just that word gets around. But we have met.”

“March!” Yael exclaimed joyfully. “The man we traveled with in the shuttle!”

So it was! “Of course, March,” Melody said, as if she had never been in doubt. “We can use you now, if you care to volunteer. But if you do, you will miss the life-craft out, so don’t do it unless—”

“Sir, I understand,” the man said. “I shall remain with this ship.” He turned to his companions. “Get the hell on to the boats!”

The others moved on wordlessly. “Sir,” March said. “I don’t know much about hullside work, but you’ll need three more.”

“We’ll make do with whatever we have,” Melody said.

“I mean, to carry the laser torch. It weighs two hundred pounds. The foot-magnets won’t hold.”

Melody visualized a two-hundred-pound weight hanging from the hull, and remembered her jaunt into space. She shivered. The man was right; it would take a proper crew. “We’ll just have to see,” she said.

The lights failed. The hall became absolutely dark, for this was no planetary surface with diffused light. But in a moment Llume glowed, illuminating her own way. She depended more on sound than sight anyway.

They took the chute down to the hull, but now it was a giddy ride through the impenetrable dark. Melody felt as if she were floating upward. She had increasing doubts that what she was doing was wise. If they turned about right now, they could still catch a lifeboat…

And maybe give the segment to the Andromedans.

“Of course you’re right,” Yael said. “We can’t do that.”

“You mean that was your thought, about turning back?” Melody asked.

“I guess so. It’s funny. I always liked adventure, and you didn’t. But when it comes to the crunch, you plunge in while I waver.”

“I have a more galactic view.”

“You have more damn courage!”

“Me? I’m just an old—”

“An old Mintakan neuter liar!”

“No, really; I’m terrified. But my life is mainly behind me, so I don’t have much to lose, and when something has to be done—”

“That’s what I mean,” Yael said. “Being scared simply doesn’t stop you. You keep saying how old you are, but I’ll bet you were the same when you were young.”

When she was young… She had been a conceited fool, a real one, not a symbolic Tarot fool. The Tarot fool had substantial redeeming qualities, while young Melody, in contrast, had thrown away her life. She had paid with eight subsequent Mintakan years of isolation. Only here in the human host had she really come alive. But how could she explain that?

“You don’t need to,” Yael said.

“I have no choice,” Melody said, reverting to the first subject. “If I had a way to save the galaxy without risk to myself, I’d take it.”

“Big concession!”

Melody realized she was no longer moving. She extended her feet and found the floor beneath the chute exit. They had reached the suiting room.

In a moment a brightening glow announced the arrival of Llume. Dim as this illumination was, Melody found it enough; her human eyes had adjusted, and she could now see most of the room.

Two more men arrived down another chute. “Didn’t you get the word?” March demanded. “Evacuation. Now.”

“We got the word,” one said. “We’re staying with the Ace.”

There was no further conversation, but Melody felt an overflowing of pride. This quiet patriotism in the face of threat—these men knew they were likely to die, but they weren’t fazed. “There is true courage,” Melody told Yael. “You and I are ignorant—”

“Babes in the woods.”

“Yes. We don’t know the risks. But March and his companions understand completely—and they are taking this risk. What finer recommendation of character can there be than that?”

The group suited. Llume’s spacesuit was a special one with a flexible tail assembly and a magnetic wheel; it must have been manufactured in Sphere Polaris. They all trundled out the laser torch. This was a barrel on a tripod, ungainly, evidently intended for interior work. It looked heavy, but the reduced gravity had cut its weight in half.

“How do we know where the anchors are?” Melody asked.

“Doesn’t matter,” March said. “If we can see them, we can cut them, with this. If the corrosion doesn’t get our suits first.”

Corrosion… suits. Ouch! But if they were careful to touch the hull with nothing but their armored feet…

They advanced to the nearest lock. It had to be operated manually, because of the power failure—and it was stuck. “The corrosion,” March said. “It has sealed the outer lock. We’ll have to knock it loose.”

Melody and Llume stood back as far as they could in the compartment while the three human males put their shoulders to the lock door.

The door would not budge. The human form was not well adapted to this sort of action in low gravity, and was as likely to damage itself as to break open the metal.

“Try repressuring,” March said. “Fifteen pounds per square inch should force it open.”

The pressure system could be operated manually. Like most hull equipment, it was fail-safe. Their suits lightened as the air built up, but even at twenty PSI the door did not budge. The corrosion was really effective—as the Knyfh officer probably could have explained, had she given him the chance.

“The magnet,” Yael said.

Yes! “Slammer can do it,” Melody said aloud. “Just give it room.”

They moved aside, and with one joyful bash Slammer hurled open the lock.

The release of pressure was explosive. Melody, Llume, and the men hung on to the rails, and the big and little magnets used their strong attraction to resist the outward thrust.

Suddenly, the bulky laser torch, forgotten, was caught by the wind and thrust out into space. And not one of them had thought to bring along a jet-pack or safety line, for none of them were experienced in this line of work.

17. Service of Termination

*progress report three more segments have fallen: freng, weew, thousandstar*

:: excellent! that leaves three ::

*qaval is near collapse knyfh and etamin are continuing stout resistance*

:: I have knocked into this situation the essence of enemy action lies with knyfh a knyfh contingent in etamin is responsible for the extraordinary opposition there eliminate knyfh, and etamin will fall immediately send the reserve force to knyfh ::

*but if that fails, we shall be without*

:: it shall not fail the bold strike is what prevails that is what dash did not understand ::

*POWER*

:: CIVILIZATION ::

Chagrined, they stared after the laser torch. “We had only two in service,” March said. “The other was lost when the primary repair crew went out.”

There was something a bit noble about his despair, and Melody wished she could kiss him. Or maybe that was Yael’s urge; it was getting harder to tell them apart. There was a lot to recommend these sturdy, thrust-culture Solarians, yet Melody was not moved to any more serious attachment. None of them had that power of aura that Dash had, or the affinity of aura that Llume had. Too bad Dash had been an enemy, and Llume another female incarnation.

“Well, I liked March from the start,” Yael said. “He’s from backwoods Outworld, like me, and he’s the first spaceman we met.”

As though those were sufficient recommendations! Melody gave a mental shrug; to each her own values.

But now they had a problem. They had lost their torch; and apparently there was no other way to remove the monstrous anchors from the hull. Magnetic, so they could not be pried off, the anchors were designed to hold the weight of an entire ship! The huge cables were impervious steel, uncuttable by normal means.

The group stood on the hull, hanging by their foot-magnets from the planetlike mass of the ship. A film of corrosion covered the metal, like mold, weakening the strength of the footholds. The ship was, indeed, a moldering corpse.

Melody looked along the length of the great vessel, down the handle to the flaring blade of the sword. The light-collecting troughs were still in place, but she knew that soon they would collapse as the decreased rotation became insufficient to keep the guy-wires taut. Then there would be no further energy input, even if it were possible to fix the corroded mechanism and wash off the fogged surfaces. One little brush with a Spican cloud… doom. It seemed very final, out here.

She looked into space and saw the lights of the life-craft, already in space, moving across the mighty starry field of the Milky Way galaxy. They were signaling to other ships for a pickup.

Marooned on a derelict. No doubt the battle still raged, but with the naked eye nothing was visible; they might have been alone in the universe. Was this the ultimate reality of the supposedly exciting engagement of fleets, the War of Two Galaxies?

At last her gaze fell on the two magnets. They were touching the surface, despite the corrosion. Of course! Their normal mode of repulsion would send them shooting into space, here; Slammer had surely learned that. Had he rolled across the hull when he was out here before? He must have, and she had not been paying attention. The magnet species was remarkably well adapted to space. She would have to clean off the corrosion once they went back inside, though. No sense having it eating into the magnets.

They walked to the nearest anchor, scarcely a quarter mile around the hull. It was a block of metal, three feet thick and twenty across, with its chain rising at an angle. Its field was so powerful that Slammer and Beanball could not approach it; the current would have overcome them.

Too bad! But for the overwhelming field, Slammer might have attacked the anchor-cable and perhaps frayed and severed it. No chance of that now!

They tramped silently back into the airlock and climbed carefully in. No one except the magnets had touched the corroded surfaces with anything but footwear (or Llume’s wheelwear)—but what did it matter? Death was only a matter of time.

“You and Llume can still transfer out,” Yael said.

“Where would that leave you?” Melody retorted. “And the men?”

“There are worse ways to die than alone with three men,” Yael said. “I guess if I’d been able to choose it, this is the way I’d go.”

Melody considered that, and decided she couldn’t find much fault with it. But she did not feel free to admit that. “The others know we’re here. When they see the ship remains derelict, they’ll send a boat back.”

“First they have to get picked up themselves,” Yael pointed out. “And we might get blasted or holed before they get here.”

All this time, rotation had been slowing. Now gravity was hardly an eighth normal, and fading rapidly. Melody started to strip out of her suit, but hesitated, realizing she would have no footing without the magnetic shoes. The air, under shipwide pressure, seemed good; each level of the ship was sealed to prevent pressure rising inordinately near the hull. But with the access-chutes open and power off, there was a draft as the air settled. And more than air was required for life support! Still, no sense using up the suit prematurely. She doffed it.

“Men,” Melody said aloud as their helmets came off. “It appears we are going to die, perhaps quite soon.” She was not certain in her mind that this was so, but the odds seemed to favor it, so she was playing it safe, ironic as that was. “I am an old Mintakan in transfer to this fine young Solarian host. The host-entity has volunteered to entertain you as you may wish during the final moments. There is a transfer unit in this ship. I shall, if you choose, use it to transfer my identity to some other host in the fleet. Possibly I can arrange for your rescue. But I think you should not gamble on my success to the extent of turning down my host’s offer. Are you amenable?” And privately she thought that if she had had perspective like this in youth, she never would have thrown away her adult life.

The three men exchanged glances in the light of Llume’s glow. “Sir,” March said after a moment. “This is generous of you—and your host. You are surely aware that you have the aspect of a remarkably attractive woman, despite your present dishabille. Physically and mentally. But I have lived in a civilized manner, with the interests of my world and my species paramount, and I prefer to die that way. I would not touch you or your host unless it were your honest preference, with the prospect of life ahead of you—and I doubt that is the case.”

“That’s all you know,” Yael muttered. “Who cares about Kirlian aura—that’s a man.”

“I suggest we hold a Service of Termination,” March continued. “Then see how we feel.”

A Service of Termination. This was a segment convention, so Melody understood the concept directly. It was a means by which entities of different Spheres could together comport themselves for approaching demise without the rancor of contrasting philosophies or customs. It was contrived to have no objectionable elements, yet to provide strong support for all participating entities. And it did not have to wait for the certainty of death; any reasonable likelihood sufficed.

“I agree,” Melody said. She knew she should transfer out, because of the value of her aura to the segment, but this was a matter of personal integrity. These people were here because of her; she could not desert them. Not before the service. She glanced at Llume.

“I also agree,” Llume said. “This convention is known to Sphere /.”

March stiffened. “The Polarian is of Andromeda?”

“Andromedan—Spican—Polarian,” Melody said. “She is a transferee of the enemy, but she renounced her galaxy in favor of ours. In this situation we may not discriminate against her.”

Again, the men exchanged glances. “Agreed,” March said tersely.

They gathered in a circle, facing out. March flanked Melody on her left, and another man was on her right. Then Llume, and the third man.

“One moment,” Melody said. “Slammer. The magnet is entitled too. He’s a sapient entity.”

No one protested. Slammer and Beanball moved to March’s left, completing the circle. The humans kneeled, Llume settled, and the magnets dropped near the deck.

For several minutes all remained in silent meditation. Melody tried to compose her thoughts, but they were a jumble of uncertainties. What decisions could she have made to avoid this present doom? Had there ever been any hope, or was the Andromedan onslaught prevailing galaxywide? Surely Segment Knyfh was holding out, and the other center-galaxy cultures. Maybe Captain Mnuhl was whining the battle at this moment! But how could she be sure? Regardless of the condition of this ship, the service might be in order—for the termination of the Milky Way galaxy.

Then she spoke aloud. “I yield my floor to my host, Yael of Dragon.” And she released the body to its natural mind.

“Everybody here stayed to save the ship,” Yael said. “To save the galaxy. Even if it didn’t work, I think that’s great, and I love you all.”

After a moment, the man on Melody’s right spoke. “I always admired the Society of Hosts, and I thought about being a host myself. Now I admire it more. I hereby proffer my membership, for what it’s worth now, and I hope the God of Hosts will accept my spirit.”

He didn’t know that the hostages on Planet Outworld had infiltrated the Society of Hosts and nullified it. Still, did that make any real difference? The Society had sent Melody herself out here, and she had done her best to honor its original aims.

Then Llume: “Let this struggle be resolved without loss of a galaxy, though it take a thousand years. Let my people of / redeem themselves as truly civilized entities, not as exploiters.”

The other man did not speak, but hummed a tune. He had inexpert control, but it was recognizable as a folk song common to Solarians. After a moment Melody picked it up, drawing the tune from Yael’s memory, using her inherent Mintakan musical ability to fill out her host’s voice. She had been without music for this whole adventure, and suddenly she missed it terribly. To die in music; that was her real wish.

Llume joined in, her ball vibrating against the deck in such a way as to make the sound seem to rise from the entire deck in descant, adding a dimension. Her body glowed in time to the beat, adding visual appeal. Now the two remaining men added their voices, and though they also were untrained, the imperfections seemed to cancel out, leaving the whole more perfect than it might have been.

Yet there was more, a special tonal quality that Melody did not at first recognize. In her own Mintakan body she could have identified it instantly, but the human ears were far less precise. She searched it out while she sang—and suddenly placed it. The magnet! Slammer was vibrating in such a manner as to produce a sustained sound, varying in pitch in time to the musical beat. And Beanball contributed a high pitch.

The magnets were singing too.

The harmony swelled, becoming much more than it had been, more than the mere total of the contributing voices. It expanded into a transcendent experience that suffused air, body, and spirit. It was almost like home, after all!

At last it faded. Melody opened her eyes, unaware of when she had closed them, and saw a ring of spheres around the kneeling group. The other magnets of the ship had come, attracted by the sound. How could she have forgotten them? They were all living, feeling creatures, doomed to die with the ship. Magnets could not travel well on lifeboats; there was not enough metal, and the necessary coal-crushing was too hard on the light hulls. They all belonged in this Service of Termination. But she made no immediate sign, letting it proceed.

Now the song was over, and it was Slammer’s turn. Of course he could not speak—not in human voice—but the magnet was entitled to its space. It vibrated.

Llume spoke. “I translate the message of the magnet,” she said, as though this revelation of magnet speech were routine. “He is aware of the crisis, and wishes to help. The magnets do not wish to perish. They can make this ship operate to a certain extent, but they lack direction.”

Nice gesture, Melody thought. But the human crew could make this ship operate, too—if it were operable. About all they could do was close off a section and enhance life-support mechanisms there, so as to extend life and comfort. The magnets had even poorer comprehension of such realities than Melody herself had had. That made their offer useless.

It was March’s turn. “In this my last day, perhaps, I want the truth to be known. I was a guard at the Ministerial Palace of Imperial Outworld. I shot a Minister by accident, but he turned out to be an agent from Sphere * of Andromeda, the first hostage we discovered. I was exiled so that the hostages on Outworld would not know they had been discovered. But we were already too late, for the hostages had taken over the fleet. So it was for nothing. Had we known…” He faltered, then continued. “It is pointless, but I did not want to die under an alias.”

There at last was the answer to the riddle of this man! He had, in his fashion, been responsible for bringing Melody here. He had done what he could to preserve the Milky Way galaxy, and now feared, as she did, that it had not been enough.

“This time I speak for myself,” Melody said in her turn, suddenly appreciating how well the Service of Termination served to ease its participants. “March’s sacrifice was not wasted. Because of the discovery he made, the segment’s highest Kirlian aura was summoned, drafted against her preference to fight for her galaxy. I am that entity, and though the effort may have failed, we believe we came close to repelling the Andromedan takeover. It was worth the effort, and now it is an honorable demise. I thank you all for showing me the nobility that exists in your several species. I was near death anyway; this is a better termination than I would otherwise have had.” And why not accept it, remaining here, instead of going out again in transfer to witness the humiliation of her galaxy?

Their statements complete, they paused for another period of meditation. Then, slowly, guided by a common impulse, they turned inward. Those in Solarian form reached out their arms to touch their neighbors. The men on either side of Slammer touched his surface with their fingers, and it was the same with Llume.

“God of Hosts, be with us yet,” Melody said with feeling. Slowly, in the course of this adventure, she had come to believe in this concept.

“Lest we forget, lest we forget,” the others responded sincerely. Lest we forget our galaxy!

Now Melody projected her aura along the channels provided by the touching bodies. It merged with Llume’s aura, and with Slammer’s magnetism, and as the song had done, it expanded in circuit. The trifling auras of the three Solarian males were magnified beyond anything they could ever have experienced. Like an invisible flame it rose, like the glow of sunrise on a planet, transformed into ethereal radiance, health, joy.

This is nirvana! Melody thought, and felt the agreement of the group. The failings of her body and of her mind faded, replaced by exhilaration, by perfect health and beingness. Nirvana—the final unity of all sentience, in which self did not exist because self had become the universe. It was not bliss so much as fulfillment, that fulfillment that sexual congress only hinted at. It transcended male-female mergence, because it was the mergence of life itself. We are all siblings, she thought, and felt the concurrence of the service.

For a moment that was eternal it remained, this holy unity, this fragmentary vision of identity; then the glow subsided. Melody opened her eyes again, feeling her body and mind healed, and saw the face of the man across from her, shining wet. Then she became aware of her own face, soaked with tears.

Their hands dropped. The service was over.

Melody felt clean.

Then she stood and turned to face the waiting ring of magnets. “I think there is little we can do,” she said. “But we have to try. To what extent are you capable of making this ship function?” She felt no particular emotion; she was satisfied to allow her life to end, now. But as a matter of consistency, it was necessary to explore all available avenues.

Beside her, Slammer hummed. Llume translated: “We can activate magnetically controlled systems and manual systems. These include life-support and weaponry.”

“Let’s go back to the control room and see what we can do,” Melody said, putting a positive face on what she knew remained disaster. They were all doomed, and had accepted that doom. She herself might escape it, but for what purpose, if the galaxy had fallen? Only by saving this ship, it somehow seemed, could she save the galaxy.

Now there was some light from lens-vents in the hull; the slow turn of the ship had brought this side sunside. But even though rotation was greatly reduced, they would be darkside again in due course. And there would be no lenses in the interior levels.

So first they needed light—reliable light. The power remaining in storage had to be conserved for emergency life-support, or they would perish as the quality of air in the ship deteriorated and the temperature changed. Unable to rotate the vessel, they could not get the solar collection system functioning properly; there would be no power renewal. But there were so few breathing entities aboard now that the reserves could be made to last for a long time. A worse problem might be the interior weather caused by the uneven heating and cooling of the hull. Hot air was already beginning to push through to the cold side, making vague howling noises in the distance. A true poltergeist—a noisy ghost. The ship was a haunted tomb.

“There are lamps at the hobby shop,” Llume said. “Antique fossil-fuel devices for novelty parties, cumbersome and inefficient, but self-contained.”

“Excellent,” Melody said. “Will you fetch some for us?”

Llume’s glow disappeared down the hall. Melody watched it fade with mixed emotions. She liked the Andromedan, but still could not afford to trust her completely. If this dead ship should not be the end for them, would they be enemies again?

“We’d better get some emergency supplies, too,” March said. “Food, water.”

“Yes,” Melody agreed. It was amazing how the acceptance of death had stimulated them to handle the little details of life! “I’ll wait here.”

They departed, using oddly gliding steps. Melody was alone with the magnets, who simply hovered in place. She started for a sanitary cubicle; tension and exertion had a certain effect on the Solarian body. But with her first brisk step she sailed into the air so forcefully she banged her head on the ceiling. Without her foot-magnets she’d have to watch her step, literally! She rubbed her hurting human head as she bounded-glided the rest of the way to the cubicle and used it.

Too late she realized that, in the absence of power, the refuse could not be pumped up to the reclamation unit. Well, no help for it. The functions of life continued unremittingly while life endured.

The men returned with packaged supplies, forming a pile on the deck. Llume rolled back with a contraption of metal and transparent glass.

“I recognize that!” Yael exclaimed. “It’s an old-fashioned kerosene mantle lamp! My folks used them all the time.”

Melody gave her rein, and Yael removed what she termed the “chimney”—a glass tube open at both ends —turned up the “wick”—a fiber tube whose top end was barely visible as it projected from the body of the lamp —struck a “match”—a tiny stick of wood with a dab of frictive flammable substance on one end—and touched it to the fuel-soaked wick. When it ignited the whole way round, she turned it to a low circle and replaced the chimney above it. The whole thing was so incredibly complex that Melody wondered how the primitive Solarians had ever managed after the sun subsided.

Yael turned up the flame, slowly—“so as not to crack the glass,” she explained—and abruptly the suspended mantle—an inverted cup of webbing—glowed with a pure white light. The transformation was miraculous; from a flickering yellowish flame had issued a steady, strong, beautiful illumination.

“That’s lovely!” Melody said appreciatively. “This is a Tarot analogy. Solid circular shape like a Disk, liquid fuel, using air to make flame, and from it emanates a brilliant aura. The light seems a thing entirely apart, yet it is dependent on the crude material body.”

But she would have to meditate on the significance of these things another time. Gravity was still declining, and she wanted to get to the control room while she still had weight enough to walk. If she had to, she could use the net to summon help. Now that the ship really was a derelict, why not say so?

But if a rescue craft came, and lifted off the flesh-entities, what of the magnets? Could Melody accept her rescue, knowing she was leaving these loyal allies to slow death?

The men fashioned packs and bags, and the group started the trek toward the officers’ section.

Motion was easy, too easy. They took increasingly long strides despite their loads. When they ascended the ramp to the next inside level, their weight diminished further.

In the heart of the darkest interior, the lamp flickered and puffed out, its flame expiring in a desperate lunge. “Out of fuel?” Melody asked, chagrined.

“Out of air,” March said in the dark beside her.

“But we have air!”

“Gravity’s gotten too low. Fire needs circulation, to bring in new oxygen. The hot air expands and rises out of the way. But without gravity, there’s nowhere to rise, so it just stays there—and stifles the flame.”

“Yes, of course,” Melody said. Elementary physics! “We shall have trouble breathing, too.”

“Not if we keep moving. The force of our exhalations circulates the air; convection doesn’t have much to do with it. If we can rig a forced-draft for the lamp, it’ll burn.”

“Better just to use the battery-flash,” one of the others said. “We have three, and they’re good for several hours. By then we’ll be at the control room, and can turn on what lights we need.”

Melody took one flash and March another, and they continued. They had stepped forward several thousand years in basic technology, perhaps, but were no better off. The gravity was so slight it was difficult to get friction with the deck; now they had to use the handholds to hurl themselves forward.

When they were about halfway to the control room, the ship shuddered violently, as though suffering its final death agony. Gravity ceased altogether. The anchors had completed their grisly work.

Suddenly the passage was filled with floating junk, jostled loose by the terminal convulsion. Theoretically, everything in the ship was secured, but in practice the steady gravity had permitted considerable laxity. Tools, articles of clothing, books, fixtures—all were drifting in the wan beam of Melody’s flashlight.

“We’re in trouble,” March said.

“We can shove this stuff aside; it won’t hurt us.” Melody said, though the eerie drifting alarmed her.

“The solids, yes. The liquids, no.” And he pointed with his beam.

Now she saw it: a spreading python of liquid emerging from an open cabin. It was sanitary refuse that had not reached the recycling unit because of the power cutoff. Now it was diffusing into the air, closing off the passage. “I’m not unduly finicky,” Melody said, “but let’s see if we can find an alternate route.”

They took a side passage, but that, too, was clouding up. “Soon we’ll be breathing vaporized urine,” Melody muttered to Yael. “Unhealthy prospect”

“Ugh,” Yael agreed.

“I think we’d better get back into our suits and plow through,” March said.

Quickly they unboxed the suits and donned them. The magnetic shoes helped now, making the footing secure. Then they tramped through the sordid mists to the control room.

The ship was in a shambles. The loss of gravity had caused the fail-safe mechanisms to lock and the controls did not respond. The magnets were willing to help, but had to be given precise directives to enable them to override the fail-safes and establish workable partial systems.

Melody, Llume, and the men hardly knew what to do themselves. Poring over the instruction manuals, they gradually got portions of the ship functioning again, including the main computer. Then it became easier.

The laser cannon were partially operative, but the drive mechanism was beyond repair. The Ace of Swords might be able to fire, but it could neither pursue nor avoid an enemy ship. They had only confirmed what the Knyfh officers had known all along: the ship was a derelict.

18. Fleet of Ghosts

*report: segment qaval has fallen segment knyfh is in final stage*

:: then conquest is complete! ::

*not yet resistance continues in segment etamin*

:: oh, yes but that will fall when knyfh support is lost ::

*this is uncertain resistance seems to be native*

:: etamin! why so much trouble with that insignificant region? we did not anticipate trouble there! ::

*dash did*

:: dash was a supercautious coward! why did he fear etamin? ::

*because it was the segment of flint of outworld, who foiled us before*

:: flint of outworld is long dead! no such fluke can occur again all the rest of the milky way galaxy has fallen! ::

*the dash command of etamin has been recalled he feels otherwise*

:: the one who was discovered and nullified? who yielded his command to slash and finally to quadpoint, who is about to complete this conquest? the opinion of this creature is irrelevant he shall be assigned to degrading duty why does he feel otherwise? ::

*he says there is another like flint of outworld who coordinates the resistance*

:: another super-kirlian? then capture that aura and bring it here [pause] no, send it to sphere dash let them handle their nemesis and know it for illusion ::

*POWER*

:: CIVILIZATION ::

The ship was a derelict, but it lived. It had no spin, no gravity, refuse littered its passages, and it drifted without external drive—but deep inside it functioned.

“No one blasted us,” Melody said. “They think we’re dead; no sense wasting valuable energy on a finished hulk.”

She looked into the reactivated globe. The Knyfh cluster charge had brought the ship into the center of the battle area. It was a graveyard; ships and pieces of ships littered space much as the smaller refuse littered the halls.

It had evidently been an internecine struggle. More than half the ships of the original fleets seemed to be here, inert. Yet the battle continued: One group of fifteen ships was looping about for another pass, and on the opposite side another group of eight was maneuvering similarly. The hostages had lost thirty of their forty-five, the home forces twenty-three of their thirty-one. So the loyalists were gaining, yet losing too, for though the difference had closed to seven ships, the ratio had risen to about two to one again. Very soon Andromeda would win, and Segment Etamin would fall.

“We have to do something!” Melody exclaimed. “We’re not dead—and we never signaled disablement. We can still fight!”

“We can’t orient,” Llume pointed out. “The lasers may not be sufficiently charged, and the lenses may be too fogged.”

“I’ll go out there and change a lens myself if I have to,” Melody said. “We can shoot from ambush. The enemy will never know what hit it. We might get several—enough to change the balance.”

“We have to give fair warning,” March said.

Melody didn’t argue; she was not sure where the ethics were now. “All right, I’ll advertise on the net. They’ll know one of the derelicts has come to life, but maybe not which one. If our lasers don’t work, they’ll never know which one. And if the lasers do work…”

March smiled. “That seems fair enough.”

Melody activated the net, hoping it still worked, hoping Captain Mnuhl of Knyfh was still available. “Lan of Yap calling Mnuhl of Knyfh.”

To her surprise, he answered right away. “Mnuhl of Knyfh. Provide your location and we shall send a rescue shuttle.”

“Captain, we don’t want rescue. We were disabled, but have recovered enough to—”

“Desist,” the Knyfh said curtly.

“Captain, I’m trying to tell you—”

“Our relation is severed if you retain combat status. I am detaching my contingent from the fleet.”

Dismayed, Melody could only ask: “Why, Captain?”

Even through the mechanical translation the terrible regret was evident. “I am no longer free to wage war. Segment Knyfh has fallen to Andromeda.” The connection severed.

Melody sat stunned. Segment Knyfh—fallen! It was one of the strongest segments of the galactic coalition, a leader. She had experienced Knyfh competence and toughness herself. If that segment had been defeated, how many other Milky Way segments survived?

Now another voice cut in. “Hammer of ::. Melody of Mintaka, we recognize your identity. As admiral of your remaining force, you are entitled to diplomatic courtesy. Surrender your fleet, signal your own position, and we shall harbor you as a prisoner of war. You will be sent to Andromeda and treated with the respect due your aura.”

Melody did not respond. She had no intention of yielding now. Her aura would not serve Andromeda!

“All other segments of Galaxy Milky Way have yielded,” Hammer continued. “No hope remains for you.”

Melody cut off the net. She did not question Hammer’s word. All the rest of the galaxy—fallen! The Service of Termination really had been for the Milky Way!

“Why did Captain Mnuhl offer to pick us up if he’s out of the fleet?” March asked.

“Noncombative assistance; probably part of the military code,” Melody said. “The moment he found out we weren’t quitting, be shut up, so as not to let us give ourselves away. He’s an honorable entity. He doesn’t want to quit. But he takes orders from his own segment.”

“Now that Admiral Hammer knows of your survival,” Llume said, “he will be alert. You have a most valuable aura, one that Andromeda can use in special ways. He will try to capture you, as Dash did.”

“I have always been desired for my aura,” Melody muttered, remembering again the bitterness of her youth. The viewglobe showed the Andromedan ships reforming, approaching the derelict area slowly. And it also showed two Atoms detaching from the Milky Wayan group: Captain Mnuhl and the other surviving ship of Knyfh. They could not actually return to their segment; that would take several thousand years. They were simply removing themselves from the battle.

“Can Admiral Hammer give orders to the Atoms now?” March asked.

“No,” Llume answered. “The Atoms were neither defeated nor taken hostage. They merely become noncombatant.”

“Hammer doesn’t need them anyway,” March said. “He has a fair idea where we are now, and we can’t maneuver.”

“Maybe we can take out one or two hostage ships before we go,” Melody said. But she knew it was hopeless. Andromeda had a decisive edge, and Hammer was competent.

“If Knyfh has fallen,” Yael asked, “why is Mnuhl obeying them? Isn’t he a creature of the Milky Way?” A seemingly naive question—but it struck a chord. Melody reactivated the net. “Captain Mnuhl,” she said. “Your segment is fallen; your loyalty to your galaxy now preempts your obligation to your segment. You are part of the fleet of Galaxy Milky Way. As admiral of that fleet—the only such fleet remaining—I order you to resume hostilities against Andromeda.”

There was a pause. Would this work? How did the military mind adapt to such a situation?

Then Mnuhl responded. “Accepted,” he said.

Hammer’s voice cut in. “You are a fool, Mnuhl. We have already granted you disengagement status.”

“I renounce it,” Mnuhl replied. “So long as leadership exists within the forces of my galaxy, my ultimate loyalty is to it.”

“That leadership shall shortly disappear,” Hammer said grimly. And the globe showed plainly that the Andromedan fleet was orienting on the Ace of Swords, ignoring the other derelicts. Melody’s notion of finding concealment within the mass of wrecks was illusory—like most of her other bright ideas.

But desperation gave her another inspiration. If she could recover two disengaged ships, what about the disabled ships?

“Slammer, will the magnets fight for the Milky Way galaxy?”

Slammer bobbed affirmatively.

“Could magnets reactivate the derelict ships, using the techniques we have worked out here, provided anything remains to reactivate?”

Slammer made a complex hum. “Yes,” Llume translated. “There are magnets aboard many ships of the fleet, surviving though the flesh entities perished. Those magnets will die in time if the ships are not reactivated. But they cannot act without specific direction.”

It might be enough. “Llume, you and I are going to transfer to as many of those ships as we can reach,” Melody said. “We’ll check out their condition and tell the magnets there what to do. We’ll ambush the enemy from derelicts.”

“But there are no hosts!” Llume protested.

“There are magnet hosts.” Melody turned to Slammer. “I’m going to activate the net. You speak to your kind. Tell them to make themselves receptive as voluntary hosts. Inform them that two female high-Kirlian entities will occupy them and provide directions before shuttling back to this ship—if any shuttles remain operative. The Andromedans will not understand your language soon enough to do them any good; like us, they underestimate the sapience of the magnets. Tell your kind that in this manner we may save them and us all—but that if we fail, they will not suffer any more of a death than had we not tried at all.” She activated the net and left it on BROADCAST for Slammer.

While the magnet hummed, Melody took March aside. “This is not a good chance, but it is some chance. Once we transfer out, you men seal yourselves tight in the control room and watch the globe. When you see a shuttle or lifeboat coming, take it inside if you can, because it will be one of us returning in magnet host for retransfer. Can you handle that?”

“That much,” March agreed, tight-lipped.

“We’re safe anyway,” another man said. “We already had the Service of Termination.”

“The derelicts are pretty close together now,” Melody said. “We might shuttle directly from one hulk to another, in magnet form, organizing our fleet of ghosts.” Then she thought of something else. “Did the Knyfh officers evacuate the former hostages—Dash and Tiala and all?”

Llume checked with the computer. “No. They remain in a sealed hospital room with an individual life-support system.”

“Leave them that way. If one of us reaches a ship with a transfer unit, we might transfer back into those bodies.”

Slammer had finished. Several hums came in on the net, providing the identities of possibly salvageable ships. Melody checked their positions in the globe. “I think we’re in business,” she said with satisfaction.

“We have very little time,” Llume said. “The Andromedans are drawing near.”

“We may have to distract them with the first couple of ghosts, then skip ahead to set up more,” Melody said. She and Llume and Slammer and Beanball went to the transfer unit in the hold. Again Melody had to help Slammer across the barrier, but now that the magnet had no weight, it was easy. “Yael will see that you get across next time,” she said to it. “Maybe we can find a way to break it down so you have free access. You may be best off staying with the transfer unit anyway.”

She showed the magnets how to nudge the transfer control, once she had set it. Little Beanball was just the right size to hit the switch without touching anything else. While they were rehearsing it, another magnet showed up. “Slimmer!” Melody said. “You couldn’t get across the barrier to join the others! It must have been a terrible experience for you.” But at least the little magnet family had been reunited.

Melody oriented the unit on a Solarian derelict in the path of the oncoming ships, and set it on Llume’s aura. Llume entered, and Beanball nudged the switch. Then Melody helped the Polarian host out. She was not a zombie. True to her philosophy, Llume had not damaged her low-aura host “You and Yael and the magnets have a nice chat while Llume and I are gone,” Melody suggested.

She reset the unit, orienting on the available Mintakan ship, and entered it herself. “Okay, Beanball,” she said. And privately to her host: “Take care of yourself, child.”

“I love you, Melody,” Yael replied. “Come back.”

Then Melody was in darkness. She hovered near a metal wall, waiting.

“Hello,” Melody said to her magnet host. “I am Melody of Mintaka, here to show you what to do. Go to the ship control room.”

The host obeyed immediately. This was a fine body, with a lovely internal heat from burning coal dust and extreme responsiveness in the vicinity of anchored metal. Melody surveyed the situation, getting her bearings. This was a Mintakan ship, but it was every bit as alien to her as the other ships were. She knew the controls would be sonically organized, but in this host it hardly mattered. The question was, could this ship be made to fight?

It was an Atom type, in the same class as the Knyfh ships, with a solid nucleus and a magnetically fixed satellite shell. It had been taken hostage, but now the hostages were dead, for a missile had holed it suddenly. It was without air, but it was otherwise serviceable. In fact, since it was loss of personnel rather than destruction of equipment that had derelicted it, this was an excellent prospect for reclamation.

Did it have the missing transfer unit aboard? No. That was a disappointment, but Melody could not complain. Her success so far was fortune enough.

She floated past a dead Mintakan, a confused jumble of pipes and wires and castenets drifting in the hall. Its drum-membranes had burst, its tubes ruptured. Mintakans did not breathe in the sense that Solarians did, but they needed air for their various sonic devices, and decompression was a thorough and awful demise. The sight would have horrified her in her natural body, but sight was not possible in this host; she had instead a magnetic awareness that removed much of her emotional involvement.

The magnets of this ship, the Six of Atoms, assembled in the control room, humming with gladness for her presence. Now that she was one of them, she understood that they possessed the complete range of sapient feelings. Much of their emotion was expressed in magnetic fluxes and was therefore not perceived by other creatures, but they were certainly a full-fledged galactic species, deserving of recognition as such.

There were only five of them—all that had been assigned, since the Solarians had been, even in this crisis, jealous of their command over their metallic servants.

Melody flexed her communicatory magnetic fields. Her host was not as intelligent as the sapient norm, but was smart enough for this.

“The enemy ships are passing this ship,” she hummed, and realized that the sonic manifestation was merely a side effect of the intense fields of communication, used for special occasions only. No wonder the magnets had not seemed talkative! “We shall have to attack them. Your valuable participation shall be rewarded if we are victorious.” She did not go into the matter of hostaging, afraid that would confuse the issue, and did not mention that even if they managed to win this battle and save Segment Etamin, the remainder of the galaxy was already lost. One thing at a time!

The viewscreen was sonic, so she was able to perceive its messages. The enemy ships were almost abreast of the Solarian derelict; had Llume made it there? Would she now actually fight against her own galaxy?

The magnets had better comprehension of the mechanisms of the ship than Melody had hoped. It was functional, and they could make it work. Quickly Melody organized them, positioning magnets at the key stations, making sure they knew how to respond when she gave the orders. They were natural followers, friendly, willing assistants, wholly likeable.

Suddenly the Solarian derelict fired at the enemy—at virtually point-blank range. The Andromedan fleet had ignored the hulks, concentrating on the Ace of Swords, and passed within a thousand miles of the dead Sword. The result was impressive. A Scepter exploded, its missiles detonated by the heat-beam. A Cup sprang a leak.

Quickly the thirteen remaining ships reacted. Admiral Hammer could be caught by surprise, but he was no fool. A missile slammed into the derelict Sword, gouging a great hole in it.

Yet, amazingly, the Sword fired again, scoring on a Disk. The magnets were tough; mere shock or vacuum did not destroy them, and Llume could not be killed easily while in a magnet-host. It was a phenomenal breakthrough in military space tactics; magnet-hosts as ship captains! But then a Cup-cloud enveloped the derelict, fogging its laser lens, and it was through.

However, the enemy fleet, taking evasive action, had now come within range of Melody’s ship. They did not yet realize that this was an actual reoccupation of derelicts. Her Atom-magnetism reached out and caught two of them, a Sword and a Disk. It did not shake them physically, as the Knyfh weapons did, but induced a powerful vibration in the affected substance that made it ring—literally. Sonic vibration could shake apart a ship.

Meanwhile the eight ships of Mnuhl’s command were approaching. The Andromedans, uncertain where the enemy was, were now firing at other derelicts, wasting energy and missiles. They could not have much offensive punch left at this stage. The tide of battle was turning at last!

Then a missile struck Melody’s Atom. The concussion was cataclysmic, even to her magnet-form. The outer shell let go, as its power was Interrupted, and the nucleus split like the atom it was.

Melody was hurled into space. The magnet-body was not damaged by this; there was no more difficulty stoking coal dust in the vacuum of space than in the vacuum of the ship, though of course this could not be maintained indefinitely. Her air-vents were self-sealing, and there was an internal gas reserve. When the available combustibles were exhausted, life would fade. In the immediate situation, however, the need was not for air or heat, but for metal: large, anchored metal, for the magnetic field to grab on to. Her host was helpless. There was no hope of retransfer now!

But at least she had arranged to eliminate five more enemy ships. Ten to eight; now Mnuhl had a reasonable chance to win.

Yet what irony, to prevail by the margin of one or two ships. There would soon be a new contingent of hostage transferees from one of the pacified segments, to overwhelm this one. Thus Andromeda would fetch victory even from this defeat. Then on to the dissolution of the Milky Way galaxy, its fundamental energies sucked into the maw of Andromedan civilization.

“God of Hosts—” Melody began, speaking in magnetic fluxes. What use, her prayer, now?

A ship loomed close. A magnetic tractor reached out, drawing her in. The impossible had happened—she was being rescued!

It was a Disk. She floated to its center, to the axis of its spin where its null-gravity aperture made docking convenient. How fortunate Captain Mnuhl’s fleet had located her before she became irrevocably lost in the immensity of space! The Knyfh must have watched the action, figured out what she had done, and spread his ships to intercept the debris of the fissioning Six of Atoms. Mnuhl’s species had affinity to the magnets, so he could have been quick to catch on to the magnet broadcast. Even so, to intercept her so neatly amidst a terminal battle—that was either incredible skill or blind luck.

The powerful magnetism brought her inside the lock. This was only the second Disk she had ever boarded; it differed from the other types of ships in subtle and un-subtle ways. With her magnet perception it hardly seemed Polarian.

She entered a long outslanting ramp. Here the surfaces were nonmetallic, so that she could not float under her own power; she rolled ignominiously down the incline at increasing velocity. Disk-creatures liked to roll, of course. The slant leveled, and she halted. There was still no metal near, A powerful generalized magnetic field developed, urging her to a side passage. At last she came to an open chamber, and here she was allowed to come to rest.

“Welcome, Admiral,” a voice said.

Melody extended her perception field, and discovered that what she had heard was a Solarian translation. Beyond the translation machine was a spherical mass with six projecting short axles, a disk-shaped wheel on the end of each. The side wheels were used for locomotion; the bottom one was retracted somewhat, for gyroscopic balance and respiration; and the top one spun rapidly in the air to make the sounds of native speech. This was a high-Kirlian sapient entity.

It was of course no Polarian. This was in fact a ship of Sphere Sador, and this was a Sador host. Both Sador Disks had been taken hostage.

“Hello, Admiral Hammer.” She had, after all, been chained.