Chaos Mode

CHAPTER 8—JULIA

NONA’S feelings were mixed. She was relieved that they had managed to get Colene through the anchor before the mind predator destroyed her. The girl had been writhing and crying out increasingly, and the issue had seemed in doubt. It was impossible to know what she was going through, because when the predator attacked, her mind was cut off. Only Burgess had some limited contact, perhaps because the predator didn’t know how to exclude his alien mind. But Colene’s moments of rationality between siege had made it clear that she was suffering, and feared that she could not resist the predator much longer.

However, to save Colene they had had to do what Nona least wanted to do: return to Julia, her home Mode. Now they were standing on the hill by the sea, near her home village, on the world of Oria. The fractal outlines of the terrain were evident, though in this region they had been so much worn down that a stranger might miss them. When the villagers saw the party and recognized Nona, they would demand that she remain to be queen of Oria, because she was now the only person who could do full magic. Everyone could do illusion, of course, but that didn’t count. The real magic had been the province of the men, and now it was the province of the women, but only those who were born in the ambience of the anima. It would take a generation for the women to achieve their full powers. Except for Nona, the ninth of the ninth, who had brought the anima.

She didn’t want to be queen. She didn’t want to marry and breed. She didn’t want to stay here. Because staying would mean the end of her adventure on the Virtual Mode, which had hardly begun, and every child she bore would draw some of her magic away, until at last she too was left with only illusion. How could she avoid being trapped into this role she so detested, when they recognized her?

“Listen, Nona,” Colene said. “I really appreciate this. I know you don’t want to be here, but I guess we’ll have to stay a week or so, here in Julia, same way we did in the Shale Mode. So I guess it’s up to me to figure out how to fix it so you won’t get trapped.”

Nona had forgotten that Colene was back in the mental network, or as Burgess put it, the hive. So the girl had picked up Nona’s thoughts. Nona should have asked Seqiro to limit them. “This is not your responsibility,” she replied.

“Oh yes it is! I’m the one the mind predator was after, and you’re the one who had to come here to save me. So I owe you. I don’t want my problem to become your problem.”

Nona shrugged. “It can only be my problem, because I am the one with the anima magic.”

“And I’m the one with the animal cunning,” Colene said. “I’ll figure out something. Maybe we can hide you.”

“It’s not that,” Nona demurred. “I would not be recognized beyond this village, physically. But the moment I do any magic, anyone on Oria will know me. Then in a moment, all will know that I am back.”

“Well, maybe if you just don’t do any magic, then.”

“I shall have to, to provide food and shelter for us,” Nona said. “We must not use our carried supplies while in an anchor Mode.”

Colene nodded. “Um, yes. But there must be a way. Maybe if we stay in the countryside, and you do magic only when no one else is around.”

“We would still have to explain the source of our supplies,” Darius pointed out. “Lest they think we are thieves. And I am not certain how we can ever explain Burgess.”

“This is true,” Nona agreed. “There is no creature like Burgess on this world. He will become an object of cynosure very quickly.”

Colene turned to gaze at Burgess. “Yeah, I guess he’s a freak, here. No offense, airfoot.” She touched a contact point. Then she did a double take. “A freak! That’s it!”

The others all looked at her, even the horse and Burgess’ three eyes on stalks. “Is the mind predator after you again?” Darius inquired with a smile that was not fully humorous.

“No, I’m okay, honest!” Colene exclaimed. “Tired, sure; I’ll have to sleep a day or two pretty soon. But I know what I’m thinking. Back on Earth sometimes they have these freak shows, with a traveling circus or something. A bearded woman, a dwarf, a dog-faced boy, a two-headed snake—that sort of thing. Folks have to pay to see the freaks. It’s always a rip-off, but as old Barnum said, there’s a sucker born every minute. So Burgess can be our freak, and we’ll make folk pay to see him. We’ll say he’s from a weird distant world, which he is, really: an alternate Earth. But tame, and we won’t let anybody hurt him. That should be good for a few thrown pennies.”

“Pennies won’t account for our food and supplies,” Darius said.

“So who’s to know how many pennies we get? Maybe nickels and dimes, too, or gold pieces, whatever they have here. The point is, it’ll explain our livelihood, and no one will question it.”

“An entertainment troupe,” Nona said, appreciating the nicety of it. “We do have those on Oria. Traveling minstrels, groups of actors who put on plays. I suppose one could be for the showing of an unusual creature.”

“It sure could,” Colene said. “Darius can be the ringmaster, riding a big brown horse—guess who, horseface! Did you know that Seqiro’s the exact age and color I am? Fourteen, and brown hair! We were destined to be together. And you can play music and sing and dance, Nona; the men’ll love it, ‘specially if you wear a skirt which flares. So sure we can be an entertainment troupe; I like that notion better than freak show.”

“But what will you do?” Nona asked. “You are definitely not a freak, but—”

“But I don’t have a body to madden men’s minds, either,” Colene agreed. “Guess I’ll just have to be the hat girl.”

“A girl in a hat?” Nona asked, perplexed.

Colene laughed, and clarified the thought. “An urchin with a big hat, running around and begging for coins, when the show’s done. I’ll catch ‘em in the hat, see. And I’ll do the chores, like cleaning up manure. All-purpose servant.”

“This is obviously your ideal vocation,” Darius said drolly.

“And I’ll feed that manure to you, after Nona has made it look like gourmet fare,” she responded with mock sweetness. She turned to Nona. “So have I figured it out? If I conk out now, can you folk carry through?”

“I believe we can,” he agreed.

Colene went to Seqiro. “Can you carry me for a while, horseface? Poor Burgess’s been doing it, and I know he’s worn out too. I’ve got to sleep safely.”

Seqiro agreed that he could carry her, and Colene climbed up on his harness and half sat, half lay on his back. In a moment she was asleep. Nona knew it, because of the telepathy; Colene dropped out of the net.

“We had better get away from here first,” Darius said. “So that the folk of your villages don’t see us.”

“That is true.” Nona knew that he could conjure them to another place, but this had its complications. It was better simply to walk. “I will clothe us in illusion. It would be easy for another person to penetrate it, but perhaps none will bother.”

She made Seqiro look like a smaller horse, with no harness and no person on his back. She made Burgess look like another horse. Both wore yellow animal tunics. She conjured a blue tunic for Darius and a red one for herself. These were the theow colors; when the animus had become anima, and the men lost the power of magic, and the despots their authority, the colors had not changed. It was just that blue and red were now worthy colors, instead of indications of servitude. The black and white of the male and female despots had become the lowly colors.

She led the way away from the village. They were lucky; they encountered no one. She wondered about that; normally there were folk working in the fields, and lovers taking walks, and animals grazing. It was odd that things were so quiet.

By early evening they had reached a secluded region shielded from any thoroughfare by an arm of the forest. It was relatively barren, so that no fanning was done here. They should be able to camp here without being disturbed.

She took up a stick of wood and transmuted it into a swatch of cloth. Then she expanded the cloth until it was large enough to make a tent, and gave that to Darius to work with. She picked up a stone and transmuted it to crockery, and magically shaped that into a small cup. She expanded the cup into a bucket. She took an acorn and transmuted it into horsefeed, then expanded the feed until it filled the bucket. Seqiro had his meal. She was about to make something for Burgess, but he didn’t need it; he was already sucking up more of the fallen acorns and grinding them up inside. Finally she went through a similar process to make bowls of mashed potatoes and cups of milk for the three human folk. It was not, as Colene put it, gourmet fare, but Nona was not an artist with culinary magic; she could produce only type and quantity. However, illusion did serve to improve it.

Colene woke and got down from the horse. She had had several hours’ sleep, and remained logy, but was feeling better; her emotion was only slightly depressive now. She was hungry; she gobbled her dish of mashed potato and gulped down her milk.

As night closed, they stripped the harness and burdens from Seqiro, and the horse went grazing. Burgess continued to quest for things on the forest floor, quite competent to take care of himself. The three humans settled into the tent Darius had made from Nona’s material and planned their tour. Then they settled down to sleep in their normal fashion, Darius between the two women.

This was not, Nona reflected, so much different from their stay on Shale. Except that here they did not need to fear any wild predators; none would venture this close to a human settlement.

“Right,” Colene muttered. “The only one we have to fear is our own kind.”

NEXT day their group visited a village that Nona had not been to since her childhood. Darius, the nominal master of the troupe, led Seqiro the trained horse, and Nona, her hair concealed by a cap, rode somewhat regally on the horse’s back. A closed wagon was hauled along behind, containing the Monster from Afar. The last was the hat girl, looking somewhat woebegone. They had rehearsed their parts, and hoped the villagers accepted the show for what it was intended to be.

The village seemed normal from a distance, but the closer they got the stranger it became. Instead of a reasonably neat array of modest houses, there was a collection of shells of houses, with rubbish littering the street. A barricade had been placed across the street at the edge of the village, and several grim-looking men were guarding it.

“I don’t like the look of this,” Darius said mentally. “This looks more like a military camp than a hamlet.”

“I don’t understand,” Nona said. “It looks as if there has been fighting here. Where are the women?”

“Methinks this region of Oria isn’t as peaceful as we thought,” Colene said from within the closed wagon. “We may have to beat a retreat.”

They stopped, but it was too late to withdraw. The men were coming to them, carrying clubs and pitchforks. They looked mean. They wore black tunics. Nona didn’t want to use her magic, but if the men attacked she would have to hurl a fireball. What were despot men doing here in a theow village like this?

I will project caution to their minds, Seqiro said, also in thought, which was always his way. And fear if necessary.

The men came to stand before Darius. “What’s your business here, stranger?” one demanded.

“I have an entertainment troupe,” Darius explained. Nona knew that he was a stickler for honesty, but they had indeed become such a troupe. “Our maiden plays music and dances, and our horse is trained to do tricks. We also have a strange Monster from Afar. We ask only pennies from the audience, to defray our meager expenses.”

“Mister, where you been the last month?” the man demanded. “Didn’t you know there’s been a revolution?”

“I have been isolated, far from here, with my troupe,” Darius said. “What is this about a revolution?”

“Some bitch brought the anima,” the man said. “The current changed, and now we can’t do magic. The theows got rambunctious, so we had to put the villages under martial law. You’re in theow garb; are you going to make trouble?”

“I came merely to entertain, and to earn a few pennies in payment,” Darius said. This was the truth, as far as it went; he would not have told a lie even to an enemy. “I thought my troupe would be welcomed in any village. If it is not, I will depart. I wish no trouble.”

The man looked at the other men. Seqiro projected a thought of acceptance. “Well, if you’ve got a good show, we’ll let you in. But you’ll have to be out of here by dusk.”

“I think I have a good show,” Darius said meekly.

They moved the barricade aside and let the party pass. Now the women appeared, coming out from the battered houses, their children following. They were in red. They did not look happy.

“What has happened here?” Nona demanded mentally. “Where are the theow men? This is not at all like the land I left!”

Seqiro explored the nearby minds, slowly gaining their thoughts. “The theow men were driven away,” he reported. “The women could not escape, and remain here as hostages so that the men will not attack. The despot men govern here.”

“But the despots have no magic any more!” Nona protested. “How can they govern?”

“By strength of arm and viciousness of will,” Darius explained. “They may lack magic, but so do the theows, so those with weapons and the will to use them remain dominant.”

“Oh, it wasn’t supposed to be this way!” Nona thought. “This is worse than before I brought the anima!”

“This is revolution,” Colene thought. “It’s usually this way, I think. The new order is supposed to solve all problems instantly, but it can’t, and the older order gets mean when it starts losing its power. I guess it will take a generation to settle down, when the children grow up with their magic. We should have realized that before we left here.”

“But it was peaceful when we left!” Nona reminded her.

“Because you had all the power,” Colene responded. “But then you left, and no one had magic to fill it. So instead of a new order, it’s winding down into anarchy.”

“I never realized!” Nona thought. “I should never have left! I was so selfish, thinking only of myself.”

“I don’t think so,” Darius replied. “I fear you might have been killed, as the visible agent of the revolution.”

Nona shut down her protest, realizing that this could be true. Things had taken a terrible turn.

But at the moment there were villagers to entertain. They stopped in the center of the village and proceeded with their show. Nona dismounted, and Darius made the horse do tricks, such as tapping his forehoof once for Yes and twice for No. Soon the children were laughing, and the despot men, seeing that this really was an entertainment troupe, relaxed.

“Now, horse, are you going to perform?” Darius inquired rhetorically. Seqiro tapped twice.

“Do you want any feed tonight?” Darius demanded. Seqiro tapped once.

“Do you know what you have to do to get it?” Seqiro hesitated, like a bad child, and finally tapped once. That brought the first titter. The villagers knew that the horse could not really respond so accurately, and he couldn’t be a familiar, because that magic was gone. They knew that Darius was keying the answers with some hidden signal only the horse understood. Had they known the truth, that the horse was not only reading the man’s mind but translating his words for the audience, they would have been amazed.

“What is one and one?” Darius demanded. The horse tapped twice.

“What is three and two?” The horse pondered a moment, then tapped five times.

“What is four apples and five ideas?” The horse turned his head to stare at the man, then stared at the audience, as if baffled. Then he faced away, lifted his tail, and dropped a pile of manure in front of Darius.

Even the despots were laughing then. They laughed again when Colene dashed up with a shovel and scooped up the manure. “Don’t ask him that question again,” Colene told the ringmaster as she dumped the manure in a box. “He just eats the apples, and they give him dirty ideas.” Then she grabbed her big hat and ran in front of the audience, begging for pennies. She got a number.

After the smart-horse-apple act, Nona brought out her hammer dulcimer and accompanied herself as she sang a sweet song. She was good at it, very good, because her training had been in music, and the audience loved it. Her two little hammers fairly flew across the strings, evoking the lovely music. For a second song, she removed her red tunic, to reveal a red dress beneath, with a reasonably low décolletage. Colene collected more pennies.

Then they opened the closed wagon to reveal the monster. There was a gasp of awe; this really was a strange one! Darius went into his spiel about finding this alien creature on a distant world. “Look at the people, Monster,” he ordered it. Burgess extended his three eye stalks and oriented them in the direction of the people. Colene collected a few more coins. It was of course mandatory to squeeze the audience at every stage, milking the maximum amount from each aspect of the act.

“And now, for a few more pennies, I will make the monster float,” Darius said grandly. “In air, but not like a bird.” He gestured, and Burgess took in air and pumped himself up, floating visibly above the floor of the wagon. Then he sank down again, as if exhausted—and also, the people were sure, because too much floatation would allow them to fathom the nature of the trick. Seqiro, attuned to their minds, planted the correct thoughts as the act proceeded.

It was, overall, a successful performance. Colene had a fair weight of pennies in the hat. They used these to buy some food, and then moved on out of the village, honoring the despot’s requirement that they be gone by nightfall.

But as they sought a place to camp for the night, their private dialogue was far more sober than their act for the villagers. They had expected to find a peaceful hamlet with satisfied people. Instead they had found a battle-torn remnant maintained like a prison. Was it this way all across the world of Oria? If so, the least of their concerns was whether Nona would be recognized. She knew she could not leave her world in this state. But what could she do to improve it—without sacrificing her dream of adventure on the Virtual Mode?

“I hate to say it,” Colene said. “But I guess we were insufferably naïve. We thought that all you had to do was change the animus to anima, so that the despots didn’t have any more magic, and everything would be just fine. Instead it brought chaos.” She stopped at a depression leading to a tiny river, a streamlet from a rad, one of the typical projections of the fractal world.

“Chaos,” Darius agreed. “When we were here before, and stopped at that small world, on the way to find that giant Angus, we saw devastation. We assumed it was because their despots had torn things up while being ousted. We never thought that the same would happen here. Despots and theows constantly fighting. Chaos makes everybody lose.” He squatted, dipping his hand in the cold stream and tasting the water.

Nona felt tears stinging. “I was so selfish! I just wanted to have my own adventure. I deserted my world.” She also felt physically grubby, and wished she could wash her self-condemnation out of her mind as readily as the dirt from her body.

“That’s what you thought before,” Colene said. “I’ve been thinking about that, and I think Darius is right: you had at least an even chance of getting killed, if you stayed. Then there would have been the same anarchy, and you’d have been worse off. I think you did what you had to do, bringing the anima, and then your role in the scheme of your Mode was fulfilled and you had to get away and let things work themselves out. At that point, you had earned a shot at living your own life.” She began collecting twigs for a fire. They had evidently found their camping site.

“I agree,” Darius said. “Revolution is not an easy business. The only way you could have avoided it was by not bringing the anima.” He stripped his blue tunic and stood naked, ready to wash.

“But I had to bring the anima!” Nona protested. “And now I have to help my world.” She removed her own tunic, and then the undergarments Colene had encouraged her to adopt.

“Not by getting yourself killed, you don’t!” Colene retorted. “I’m the suicidal one around here, not you.” She pulled off her tunic and underthings, joining them in nakedness. Such was their familiarity with each other now, because of experience and their constant linkage of minds, that this was routine. Nona noted peripherally that not so very long ago she would have been amazed.

“But I still wish I had your body,” Colene said, answering Nona’s thought in that disconcerting way she had.

“There is nothing wrong with yours,” Nona reminded her.

“There is nothing wrong with either body,” Darius said quickly. “Take my word.” They had to laugh as they proceeded to wash. Darius had asked Seqiro not to relay any incidental sexual thoughts he might have on such occasions, and this gave the man the illusion of indifference. Nona suspected that without that, their camaraderie would have been strained at times.

“For double sure,” Colene muttered.

Burgess had a thought. They had visited only a single hive. Was it possible that other hives were not infected?

“Yes, we need to verify the planetary situation,” Darius said. “It may be that the transition is more peaceful in other regions. We have to assess the extent of the problem before we consider any action.”

Nona knew that they were trying to make her feel better, and to dissuade her from doing something foolish. It was possible that they were right. In any event, she couldn’t do anything immediately, and she did not have the right to get her friends of the Virtual Mode in trouble on her behalf. So until it was safe for Colene to venture back onto the Virtual Mode, they should continue to look around, not revealing themselves.

So they relaxed, and retired to their tent, and Nona tried to sleep. But her mind would not shut down. “I had better stand guard,” she said abruptly, getting up and leaving the tent. Neither Darius nor Colene protested, though they already had an alarm wire strung that would alert them if any person tried to approach in the night.

She made a small illusion lamp to give her light, and walked down by the little stream. She loved her world of Oria, and hated to see it in distress. Yet she feared that the others were right: there was little if anything she could do now to ease the transition. Did that justify her desertion of her world?

Do you wish my company? It was Seqiro, reaching her with his thought, though his body was grazing elsewhere.

“I wish your company forever,” she replied. “But I fear that is not to be.”

Before I came to the Virtual Mode, I longed for the company of a girl, a human female who was bound to me by preference rather than by my control of her mind. Colene was the realization of that longing. Now I have you also.

“You have me also,” Nona agreed. “But you must return to the Virtual Mode, while I think I must remain here.”

I, too, am selfish. When I am in contact with a human mind, I can think in the human style. Colene gives me intelligence well beyond my own, and so do you. When we reach the anchor where Darius’ Mode is, Colene will go there with Darius. I could go with them, but I think they will have other concerns than horses, and it may be that my power of telepathy will not exist in that reality. Then I would be a mere animal, denied the joy of high intelligence. I would prefer to remain on the Virtual Mode, if I could be with you.

“Oh, Seqiro!” Nona cried. “I wish I could be with you!”

If you and Colene separate, I must go with her. But if I go with her, and then lose her, I will have no girl.

“I do want to be your girl,” she said, feeling the tears on her face again. “I don’t want to be queen. But I must do what I believe to be right.”

Yes, this is part of your appeal.

“Where are you, Seqiro?”

Follow my thought.

She followed his thought, and soon found him in the field. She doused her illusion lamp and put her arms up around his massive neck, hugging him as well as she could. She wept, because this was when weeping was proper.

After a bit she made her lamp again and walked back toward the tent, her mind less troubled than it had been. The she encountered Burgess. “Hello, airfoot,” she said, borrowing Colene’s idiom as she put her hand on a contact point.

Burgess was not fully comfortable on the Virtual Mode or this strange world. But as long as he remained with the hive, he could cope, and the longer he remained the better he could cope. He would feel distress if any creature of the hive were to be lost.

“Oh, Burgess,” Nona said sadly. “Are you, too, asking me to stay with the group?”

As the floater understood it, two members of the hive would be leaving it when they reached the right anchor. That would leave only three. That was too small. If Nona left it too, there would be only two, neither of whom could generate human intelligence. That would mean the end of the hive.

“Oh, Burgess, I do want to remain with the hive!” Nona said. “But I must do what I can for my world of Oria. If the hive ends, could you and Seqiro come back here?”

Burgess did not know, but it seemed doubtful, because Seqiro needed a human mind for intelligence and Burgess needed human versatility with wagons and bridges to navigate the difficult terrain.

“But if Darius and Colene left, and shut down Darius’ anchor, there would be a new person with a new anchor. Then you would have a new member for the hive.” But that seemed thin. It was not that easy for Burgess to adapt to new people, and a stranger would see him as exactly the kind of freak he pretended to be for their road show.

Yet Seqiro and Burgess could get along, if Nona were with them. Then a new hive member could be introduced by the horse’s telepathy and Nona’s intelligence. It was the nucleus that could grow a new hive from the remnant of the old.

Nona realized that Burgess’ thought was right. It could be done, if she remained with them. Her magic would also help. Darius and Colene had started the Virtual Mode, but the three of them could continue it. They could have their own adventure of exploration, discovering strange worlds and creatures. Now she knew that this was what both Seqiro and Burgess wanted.

“I want it too,” Nona said. “But not at the expense of my world.”

She returned to the tent, where Darius and Colene slept beside each other in the night tunics Nona had made for them and for herself. There was no pretense here; they really were asleep, because Seqiro relayed their inchoate unconscious thoughts. The two were holding hands, their fingers loosely interlaced yet suggesting tenderness and trust. They were a couple, for all the difficulties they had relating fully to each other when awake, and she wished them well. Colene thought Darius was too morally rigid, except with respect to other women, where it seemed he had an attitude Nona had not seen. Darius thought Colene was too young, though he desired her body and her love with an intensity that sometimes leaked through despite the way the horse filtered it out. The fact was that Colene was not too young, for experience had matured her rapidly, and Darius’ awareness of other women would fade if he simply recognized Colene as a woman instead of an almost-woman. All either needed was to accept what the other offered.

Nona laughed to herself. How readily she could solve the problems of others, when she could not address her own! Perhaps to the others, Nona’s problem was as readily soluble. In fact, maybe all they needed to do was address each other’s problems and soon there would be no more problems.

Nona lay down on Darius’ other side. She liked them both, and regretted being any part of the dissension between them. She had no romantic designs on Darius, but did like him as a person. If she were ever to marry, she hoped it would be to a man like him, but that did not mean Darius himself. Colene understood that intellectually, but not emotionally. Colene feared that one day Darius would simply be overwhelmed by Nona’s presence and choose to marry her instead of Colene. But Nona would not accept that, for her own very certain reasons, and she wished she could convince Colene of that. Darius, however he felt about women in general, would never take a woman against her will. Nona represented no threat to Colene’s romance. Nor to her horse either; Colene would have to give up Seqiro before Nona took him.

But what kind of a threat did Nona represent to her world? Had she done no more than throw it into chaos? What could she do to redress such an evil?

I will help you sleep.

Nona realized that she did need this help. “Thank you, Seqiro.” Then the horse’s mind pressed her awareness gently down, and she slept.

IN the morning the others were up before Nona. They were ready to strike camp by the time she woke. “Seqiro—did you hold me in sleep late?” she demanded as she scrambled up.

Yes. So we could consider your problem.

“But I didn’t ask anyone to do that!” She tore off her night tunic and dropped a red day tunic over her head.

True. This is why it was better for you to sleep.

“The rest of you don’t have any responsibility for me! This is something I have to do myself.” She was now making her way to their designated latrine area, and was conscious of a possible double entendre.

Colene appeared. “When the mind predator came after me, did you decide it was something I had to handle myself?”

“No, of course not! We had to get you away from—” Nona broke off, grasping the point. She regrouped her thoughts. “What did you decide?”

“Seqiro says he thinks you can solve my problem, so maybe I should solve yours.”

So the horse had not told the specific nature of Nona’s private thoughts. She was thankful for that. “If you could solve mine, I would certainly try to solve yours. But I fear no one can solve mine.”

“So let me try to solve yours first, and then if I succeed, you’ll tackle mine,” Colene said.

Nona finished her private business and went to the stream to wash. She was not at all sure this was wise. She knew that Seqiro wanted her, Nona, to remain with them on the Virtual Mode, but that was no necessary concern for Colene.

Colene followed her, and put out her hand. “Deal?”

Why should Colene even want to get involved? Nona was not at all sure that this made sense. But the girl was waiting, and finally Nona took her hand. “Agreed.”

“Anyway, I might get attacked by that mind predator again,” Colene said. “They tell me that your magic made the difference, getting me here in time.”

“We all made the difference,” Nona clarified. “We worked together.” She smiled. “As a hive.”

“Well, I’m not ready to break up the hive yet.”

“What is your solution to my problem?”

“I’m working on it. This will take more than a minute or three to figure out. So you just relax, and let me stew on it.”

“It may take more than a generation to resolve!” Nona exclaimed, laughing. Now it occurred to her that Colene was simply trying to help her to relax, on the assumption that someone else was taking the burden of worry.

“Now we need you to get a familiar,” Colene said. “So we can spot a place for Darius to conjure us to.”

Seqiro stunned a passing bird, and Nona held the bird and tamed it with her mind. Then she directed it to fly to a distant village, while she had her morning meal.

In due course, using the bird’s eyes, she spied a suitable site. It was near a village that looked peaceful.

They got together, and Darius performed a mass conjuration. He had made icons representing each of them, including Burgess, and touched each with the solid, liquid, and air of the one it represented. The solid was a hair or in Burgess’ case a tiny chip from his canopy; the liquid was spittle or the equivalent; the air was breath. He activated these with a thought. Then he moved the group from the region he had designated “here” to the region designated “there.”

There was a stomach-turning lurch. They landed in a sloppy pile at the far site. The others were used to it, but this was the first experience for Burgess, and he looked a bit green around the trunk and sunken of eye stalk. Nona and Colene put hands on his contact points, and Seqiro enhanced their power of communication, so they could reassure him.

Then Nona expanded their equipment and they repaired to the village. There were no barricades here, and no sign of despots. But neither were there any glad or curious throngs of children.

Seqiro, garbed as a show horse, let Darius guide him, his mind tuned to the minds of the villagers. It always took the horse a little while to orient on new minds. Their guise as a traveling troupe gave him time to do this before they came to a stop.

But this time they were surprised. Keep walking. Do not stop.

They kept moving, passing right on out of the village without pausing, as if they had always been destined for elsewhere. As they did so, Seqiro clarified what he had discovered. This was a peaceful hamlet only in appearance; it was actually an armed and hostile camp. Men were watching from the windows, ready to emerge and stone any suspicious visitors. Any people in despot cloaks, male or female, would be killed on sight; others were let be if they seemed harmless. So Seqiro had projected emanations of harmlessness, and the troupe had been allowed to depart in peace.

Safely beyond the deadly village, they paused to assess the implications. The revolution had come here, too, and worse than the other village. The despots had been abolished.

“But there was not supposed to be killing,” Nona said, horrified. “Just a change of authority.”

“It seems that without a powerful force to keep the peace, it will not be kept,” Darius said grimly. “I suspect that even your magic, Nona, will not suffice to bring order here. The people have tasted blood.”

“I am beginning to wonder whether I should have ever brought the anima,” Nona said, chagrined.

“There must have been similar violence when the animus took over, generations ago,” Colene said. “This is a lot like my world, Earth. When there’s no strong authority, nations fission into factions, and the factions fight. I thought your world was better.”

“I thought so too,” Nona said. “Now I see that the despots, much as we despised them, did keep the peace. I am very much afraid that my magic will be inadequate to restore order in more than a single village.”

“But I guess you don’t want to give it up as a bad job,” Colene said.

“A single village is better than nothing.”

They checked several other villages, performing shows at some and avoiding others when Seqiro verified that they were dangerous. The story was similar throughout: a state of overt or covert war existed. The despots had not released their power gently; they had clung to it by whatever means they could. The theows, knowing that they were no longer opposed by magic, had thrown off the yoke wherever they could. The sides were approximately even, so the issue was in doubt. Men were learning war rapidly.

There were also collections of brown-tunicked rabble, the folk Nona had released from the underworld; rejected by the folk of the surface, they were forming communities of their own, just as distrustful of strangers.

“Well, I think I’ve figured out how to solve your problem,” Colene said.

Nona didn’t laugh. She was afraid of what the girl was going to come up with. “It will require a miracle, I think.”

“What we have to do is get some more magic here,” Colene said. “Not one woman, but a group of them, so they can spread out and establish law and order.”

“But I am the only one,” Nona protested. “I can not duplicate myself.”

“You are the only one on Planet Oria,” Colene said. “But there are whole planets full of them elsewhere in Julia. There are lots of anima worlds. All we have to do is get some of those other women to immigrate. It could be a pretty good deal for them, you know. Queen for a Day, or for life. Maybe most wouldn’t be interested, but I’ll bet some are, and even if it’s only one in a hundred, that may be enough. One to a village, maybe.”

Nona listened, astonished. Anima women from established anima worlds! Of course there were many of those. The universe of Julia had an infinite number of connected worlds, of all different sizes, with their populations in proportion. Many were animus, with the men wielding the magic, but many were anima, with the women having it. And a number of such women were bound to be interested, because instead of being unremarkable in their own society, they would be the wielders of full power on Oria. Some might be bad women, not suitable, but many would be fair. It was, indeed, an answer.

“Two problems I see,” Darius said. “Selection and transport. We’ll need a way to alert them and pick out the right ones, and we’ll need to get them here. That may be a problem.”

“Two solutions,” Colene replied promptly. “We’ll go to the amazon leaders and explain the situation. They must have dozens of prospects—women who are capable but not in line for power in that world. Women who want special challenge. Women who are too ambitious so need to be removed, but who are too well connected to be eliminated without a stink. Sure, there’ll be politics galore, but there’ll be magic women available. They may not be ideal rulers, but they’ve got to be better than chaos. And we’ll transport them the same way we travel, bringing them along the filaments that connect the worlds, in small bunches. Maybe we can get Angus to help. It may take a bit of time, but it can be done.”

Nona nodded, excited. It could be done. But she had a question of her own: “What about Burgess? Can he travel the filaments? He won’t want to remain here alone.”

Colene went to the floater and put a hand on a contact point. “Hey, elephant nose, do you want to go world-hopping? It’s one weird trip, I promise you!”

There was a pause while she clarified the situation for Burgess. Then she looked up. “He doesn’t want to get left behind. We should be able to bring him along the filaments the same way as we bring him along on a group conjuration. It’s better that we stay together, as a hive.”

So it was decided. Tomorrow they would go to the East Sea and set up for their excursion to another world. That would be a horrendous endeavor, but Nona felt relieved. For the first time since she had become aware of the problem on Oria, she had some reasonable hope of remaining with her friends of the hive.