Fractal Mode

CHAPTER 2—COLENE

COLENE gazed at the young woman. She was lovely, in a red dress, no, a knee-length tunic, with thick black, no, dark brown hair. She was the anchor person, obviously. What a relief! Colene already knew this was a nice woman, because her mind was nice.

The language was unfamiliar, of course. But that didn’t matter, with Seqiro’s telepathic ability.

However, that did not necessarily mean that this reality was safe. They had to learn more about it, in a hurry. They had just escaped an awful situation in another reality, and had some real problems to work out between themselves, and some significant unwinding to do. New trouble was the last thing they needed—but they had to be prepared for it.

Nona reminded Colene of herself of a few weeks before. That was funny, because Colene was fourteen and Nona was evidently several years older. It was the naïveté and hope and underlying desperation of her situation, all coming through as background emotion: Colene had been that way, and Nona was that way now. So it was as if the four of them were on a fantastic roller-coaster ride, without seat belts, hanging on as the ride became impossibly wild—and now suddenly a fifth passenger had dropped into the car.

Are you the Megaplayers? Nona asked.

The whats? What was this? Oh, Nona thought they were godlike figures, because of their sudden appearance from seemingly nowhere.

We are travelers. Colene clarified. Not gods. Just three people. A suicidal girl from a science world, a decent man from a magic world, and a woman who remembers the future and not the past. And a horse. He is Seqiro, and he is telepathic.

What?

He can read minds. That is how we’re talking. We’re bypassing language. That is, what I think is being translated into your language by your brain, and what you think is being rendered into my language. That’s how it works.

This is amazing magic!

“I can remember it better if you speak aloud when possible,” Provos remarked.

“And this is Provos,” Colene said immediately, projecting the thought to Nona. Seqiro cooperated so well that it was just as if she herself were telepathic. But without the horse, it would not have been possible.

Nona faced the older woman. “Provos,” she agreed.

“And Darius.”

Nona faced the man. “Darius.” She had no problem with speech; it was just that she spoke a different language.

Then Nona turned and gestured toward a man of about her own age who was approaching with a nondescript white dog with a yellow collar. His clothing was solid blue. “Stave,” she said. She indicated the dog. “Cougar.”

Then she faced the man and dog and spoke in her own language. Colene listened just enough to verify that it was completely alien, as she had expected, then tuned in on Nona’s mind again.

“…and when I turned back, they appeared from nowhere,” Colene translated. Seqiro could send to them all simultaneously, if Colene asked him to and focused on it, but this was easier now that the introductions had been made. “They say they are not the Megaplayers, and their size suggests that this is true. But they must have remarkable magic, because—” She hesitated, and Colene caught the fringe of a complex network of concerns.

Colene stopped translating, intent on the thought. There was danger of some kind, she realized, but she couldn’t pick up its nature. Nona meant them no harm, but someone else might. Not Stave, not the dog, but someone.

“I think no one here can understand us,” Colene said for herself. “Verbally, I mean. So we might as well talk freely. But someone else may. I’ll ask as soon as she stops explaining to Stave.”

Stave was looking duly amazed. Now Colene touched his mind. Hello, she thought.

His gaze shifted from Nona to Colene. His jaw dropped. Mind-talk magic! he thought.

Nona evidently was telling him the same thing. No, she wasn’t; she was saying that she was guessing about the visitors. Why was that, since Colene had explained about Seqiro’s mental ability?

Then Nona paused, and Colene asked her: “What danger?”

Now it focused. Nona answered directly and silently, but Colene spoke the words again for the benefit of the others. “The despots rule here. They take whatever they want. I must take you to them, or my village will be punished. They will treat you well, until they know how they can use you. But you must not let them know about your mind-magic, for if they knew you could fathom their minds, they would kill you instantly.”

There it was. “Why?”

“Because there is no magic of that nature here, and they will fear it. It is their great power of magic that enables them to hold us in thrall. They destroy any theow who evinces magic other than illusion.” Theow was an obscure word meaning peon or peasant; Colene dredged it out of her memory because it fit. Nona’s concept had nuances of servitude, poverty, and horror; it seemed that the common folk suffered here as they did elsewhere, while those in power exercised their prerogatives ruthlessly.

“But you have magic,” Colene said, reading this ability in Nona. There had been a time when she did not believe in magic, but she had experienced too many strange things recently to doubt it any longer. She had had no personal experience with it, but Darius was a magician in his home reality.

“I am the ninthborn of the ninth generation,” Nona thought and Colene spoke. “I have the magic of the nines. I can conjure, float, attract, transform, and heal. But only my mother and Stave know, for it must be secret until I find the Megaplayers. The despots would kill me. They would know that I seek to overthrow them and restore grace to our world.”

And so Nona had become an anchor: one of the five people who defined the slice of reality that crossed an infinite number of other realities, enabling them to travel to completely strange worlds. She had sought the Megaplayers and inadvertently tuned in on a Virtual Mode. She was surely a special person, with one terrific surprise coming.

But could Nona’s access to the Virtual Mode help her solve the problem of her world? Perhaps only if the mystic folk she sought were on one of the realities this Mode crossed.

“What are we going to do?” Darius asked Provos in his own language. Colene picked up on it because Seqiro translated the thoughts to her mind.

“We visited the despots, where Queen Glomerula sought to seduce you and Knave Naylor sought to rape Colene,” Provos replied promptly in the same language. She did not know more than a few words of Colene’s language, but with Seqiro present it made no difference.

Colene jumped. She had not had a lot of experience with Provos, but understood that the woman remembered backwards: she knew her future but not her past. Suddenly Colene appreciated how useful an ability that could be.

“You seem very sure,” Darius said wryly.

“I am. My memory is quick when we spend enough time in a single reality.”

Do they succeed? she thought to Provos.

“No,” But the woman smiled obliquely, almost before the question.

Colene was relieved. “Then let’s go to the castle and get this over with,” she said. “We’ll be moving on through the Virtual Mode soon, but Nona deserves to know her role in this.”

Darius was more cautious. “Why do we spend much time in this reality?” he asked Provos.

“Because we were blocked from the Virtual Mode.” She had evidently waited before answering, considering the question.

“What?” Colene had jumped again.

Provos spoke, and Seqiro brought the meaning to her mind. “There is a magic spell which prevents us from passing back through the anchor. We think it is because of the animus.”

“The what?”

“It becomes complicated to explain. You have done a better job of it.”

Meaning that in due course Colene would figure it out herself and explain it to the others. Maybe that was best. Anyway, they could use some rest in a single universe before tackling the rigors of the Virtual Mode again. “So take us to the castle, Nona,” she said.

“Maybe I should do it,” Stave suggested, his thought similarly translated. “I have less to hide from the despots.”

Nona considered. “Would you, Stave?” And from her came gratitude bordering on love.

Stave looked at her, startled. He had a similar feeling for her, but had not realized that it was so strongly returned. They had never been telepathically linked before.

“We will keep each other’s secrets,” Colene said.

They walked down the hill, away from the sea. The landscape was spread out before them: walled fields, patches of trees, a sprinkling of houses, and the escarpments leading up to the castle. Down in a hollow was a village, and now there was a path leading to it. It was quite pleasant, to Colene’s taste.

Nona separated from the group and went toward the village, while Stave led the way in the other direction, toward the castle. There seemed to be no mechanized transport for theows, or any other kind; people walked. Yet the houses did not look primitive. Archaic, rustic, minimal, perhaps, but not the type she would have expected on a world without heavy transport.

“The despots use the horses,” Stave explained, responding to her thought. “They control everything.” Then he had another thought, which Seqiro duly transferred: “This mind-magic—the despots will guess, if I respond to your thoughts. I must say I know nothing of you, but led you here.”

“That is true,” Colene agreed. “You do know nothing of us, and are leading us there.”

He smiled. “But I hope to learn more, if we meet again.”

Colene glanced at Provos. “Some of us spent much time with him, and liked him well,” the older woman said. “Perhaps too well. He is much a man.”

That future memory was unnerving at times! But also frustrating. How were they going to experience Stave’s manliness? “Then maybe I should explain a bit more to you,” Colene said to him. “We are from another reality. The world you know is only one of many.”

“Of course,” he agreed. “The despots try to hide the information from us, but we know that there are worlds beyond counting, if only we were allowed to walk to them. But the despots control the filaments, so we can not.”

These folk knew of alternate realities? That was surprising. And what did he mean by filaments? So she sought a clarification of his concept of worlds—and got only a mental picture of planets strung together like beads, the string between them winding in fancy patterns. Obviously not the same thing. Primitive mythology, perhaps.

“You do not understand?” Stave asked, picking up her return thought. “How can you not, since you come from another world?”

“My world is the same as yours, only not the same,” she said. “It is in a different plane of reality. So it has different people, and maybe different geography, and different laws of nature, but it is not removed in space or time from yours, exactly. We have established a Virtual Mode, with Nona as an anchor person.”

He shook his head. “That is beyond my understanding!”

“Just as your concept is beyond mine,” she said. “Later on we’ll get together and hassle this out. For now, just accept the fact that we are stranger to you than we look. We’ll just follow you up to the castle, and you do your duty and turn us in, and go away. We’ll get in touch with you later.”

Stave wasn’t satisfied with that. “The despots may mean you ill. They treat everyone with contempt. Do not trust them.”

“We don’t,” she assured him. “We can read their minds.”

Only if they allow it, Seqiro reminded her.

Oops! She had become so accustomed to the free expression among the four of them—herself, Darius, Provos, and Seqiro—that she had forgotten this was because they were all willing. A person could close his mind, if he knew how, and strangers tended to be closed anyway, because they were apt to be suspicious or hostile.

“But they will want to communicate with us, to question us,” Darius said. “Therefore they will open their minds as we become responsive.”

She nodded. That made sense. “But how do they treat horses?” she asked Stave.

“Well, if they are docile. But once they take your horse, they will not give him back unless you satisfy them that you are despots from another center.”

“Another center?” Darius asked.

“There are hundreds of despot territories, all across the planet,” Stave explained. “All oppress their theows similarly, and though they may contest with each other for dominance, they are united against theows. Only a despot has any rights, in his home territory or when traveling through others.”

Colene patted Seqiro on the shoulder. “They will not take this horse.” Nevertheless, she suffered a qualm. She had had some experience with a despotic regime.

Provos laughed. “They try!” she said.

“Do they take Seqiro?” Darius asked Provos.

Colene had not gotten used to the business of Provos sometimes answering questions before they were asked, but it made sense in her terms.

“Yes,” Provos said. “All seven.”

“So we will escape as a group,” Darius said. “But not through the anchor. But do we get through the anchor eventually?” This was the question Provos had just answered.

“So we’ll just have to play it through,” Colene said. Given the assurance that they would get away, she preferred to avoid further confusing hints of the future. What was this “seven” business? Only five could use an anchor. It was complicated for any others.

A blackbird flew toward them. “Stop talking,” Stave said quickly. “The minions of the despots can hear and comprehend, and if they think we understand each other, there will be much mischief. Pretend I have tricked you into following.”

Colene liked the way his mind worked. He might be a peasant, but he was no fool.

The blackbird circled them, then flew on toward the castle ahead. “They can see things from a distance,” Stave murmured almost inaudibly; the telepathy carried his thought. “But they usually need a familiar to hear. They have surely seen us coming from afar.”

They came to the castle. It had seemed small from across the valley, but it had grown inversely as the distance diminished, and now was huge. In fact it seemed more like a massively walled city, with the turrets of many buildings within its compound. Colene realized that either the theows had to work here in great numbers, or there were many more people in the ruling class than she had thought.

Stave approached the guard at the gate, a man in a black tunic who carried a formidable sword. “I found these three people and their horse near the sea,” he explained. “I brought them here to you, as is proper. They don’t seem to speak our language.”

Before the guard could answer, the castle gate opened. A grim contingent of interior guards marched out. They approached the party, orienting on Stave. “What is this, theow?” the head guard demanded. Seqiro picked up the thought from Stave’s mind; the guards were hostile, so their minds were closed.

“I found them in the countryside,” Stave replied. “They are strangers, so I signaled them to follow me, and they did. I thought the despots would want to see them.”

The guard faced Darius. “Who are you?” he snapped. Again, the message was from Stave’s mind.

Darius looked blank. “Are you speaking to me?” he inquired in his own language, which Colene could not understand; this time it was Darius’ thought Seqiro relayed.

The guard seemed taken aback at the unintelligible speech. Satisfied that these were indeed strangers, he pointed to the gate.

“Go there?” Darius asked. He took a step, hesitantly.

The guard turned and walked ahead, leading them in. Stave stood where he was, ignored. Go with them, he thought, his face impassive. They have no interest in me, and that is best. I will tell Ana, whom you know as Nona, that you are here. I will come if you call me, if you can mind-talk from a distance.

We can, Colene thought. She wished Stave had come in with them, however, because then they would have had a far easier time understanding what was going on. As it was, she was nervous, despite Provos’ assurance that they would get through satisfactorily. How accurate was the woman’s memory of future events? It couldn’t be perfect, because sometimes their actions changed their future.

The gate did not lead straight in. Instead they had to mount a long, steep ramp which seemed to go to the top of the wall. But it didn’t; perhaps three quarters of the way up it turned away from the wall and deposited them on a slightly sloping platform, an interior glacis. Apparently the wall surrounded a steep mountain ridge, and the castle proper was at the top of that. This would be some redoubt to storm!

Inside, it looked even more like a city. The outer wall did not connect to the interior structures; there was a wide space between them. That way the inhabitants could defend against an enemy who breached the outer ramparts; he would have to expose himself to further fire before reaching the inner compound.

They were led to a chamber just inside the wall. The head guard barked a command, but this time they really did not understand it.

Then an old man appeared, also in black. He did not walk in, he appeared in the chamber. He smiled. He spoke in more gibberish, addressing Darius.

“I do not understand what you are saying,” Darius replied in his own language.

The man lifted his hand, and a doll appeared in it. The doll looked much like Darius. The doll reached out, and in its hand appeared a cloak similar to the one the old man wore, but green. Then the cloak was on the doll.

“An icon!” Darius exclaimed. “My kind of magic!”

“Not necessarily,” Colene said. “Guess something else, just in case.” Because Nona had not mentioned that type of magic.

“You want us to change clothing?” Darius asked.

The doll was suddenly wearing the cloak. The implication was clear enough. Colene’s caution had been justified. Darius might have given away his magic, if it worked here.

“But we need a private place to change,” Darius protested.

“Oh, forget it,” Colene said. “They don’t care about our bodies.” She extended her hand toward the man in white, and immediately a green cloak landed on it. She stepped out of her clothing, except for her bra and panties, and dropped the cloak over her head. It was light and silken, pleasant enough to wear, and had a green sash she tied around her waist. Green slippers appeared before her, and she donned them too. The cloak seemed designed for a larger person, as it reached right down to her ankles, but she was satisfied.

Darius had averted his gaze as she changed; it was one of the little ways he had about him, both frustrating and endearing. That was more than could be said for the black-clad old man; he had stared at Colene’s body. She wasn’t sure whether to be angry or flattered.

Now Darius changed too. On him the cloak reached to the knees. The man stared at him too, so at least it wasn’t sexual.

Provos was in between, the tunic falling to her mid-calves. The man stared at her body too, or as much of it as showed around her long, loose green corset. What was it about their bodies the man found so odd?

For Seqiro there was a double collar, yellow and green. Colene put it on him. They’ll probably separate us, she thought. But we’ll be in touch anywhere in the castle. For his telepathy could reach her anywhere on a planet; they were attuned to each other. That gave her great comfort, especially in a strange situation like this.

Appropriately garbed, they were conducted across the open section to the inner gate. Here another black-cloaked man came to lead Seqiro away, surely to a stable. They had been through this before; it didn’t bother the horse to be considered an animal, though it irritated Colene.

The three were admitted to an interior court. Here several men and women sat in comfortable thronelike chairs. All the men were in black tunics, and the women in white tunics. Color coding, Colene realized. Stave had worn blue, and Nona red, which could be the colors for the theows. The green was probably reserved for visitors of either sex. It made sense, for a highly regimented society: nobody had to think about status.

The old man came to stand between them and the seated despots. He gestured. A picture appeared in the air over his head: himself. “Hobard,” he said, and the figure glowed momentarily. He touched himself. “Hobard.”

That was clear enough. It was his name. Seqiro was making progress on getting into the man’s mind. Colene depended on that; she would have been suicidally tense without the assurance of the horse’s ability and support.

A picture of Darius appeared. “Darius,” Darius said.

Then pictures of Provos and Colene, both of whom gave their names. This was an efficient introduction! But there was no picture of Seqiro. Evidently they didn’t think the horse was important. How little they knew!

A picture of the man on the largest throne appeared. “King Lombard,” Hobard said. The word for king was foreign, but Seqiro translated it. Maybe it was dictator or monarch or muck-a-muck or chicken-manure; it didn’t matter. This was the head despot.

Lombard? Colene stifled a giggle. There was a special lexicon of colloquial acronyms, back in her subculture on Earth, and one of these was LOMBARD: Lots of Money but a Real Dickhead. Well, maybe that was the case here. Lombard was also a Germanic tribe that invaded Italy after the fall of the Roman Empire. That, too, might fit.

Then the chief woman: “Queen Glomerula.” Colene kept a straight face; this was the one who was going to try to seduce Darius! Was it her imagination, or was the woman a nymphomaniac? She enjoys playing with unfamiliar men, Seqiro clarified. This is the impression Hobard has. She seduced him some time ago, then lost interest. The king is tolerant, since his own interest is in helpless theow girls. The king and queen consider it bad form to be stuck with each other for entertainment. The horse was merely reporting Hobard’s private assessment, but Colene found it hilarious, except that the queen’s next target was Colene’s man. She also found it funny that the queen’s name in translation sounded something like an aspect of a kidney. She’d love to give the queen a kidney disease!

Finally “Knave Naylor,” the one who was going to try to rape Colene herself. Colene kept her face straight. He looked sinister to her, a knave indeed. But he was going to have a rude surprise when he tried to tackle this supposedly innocent visiting maiden.

Hobard appeared again in the image. Beside him formed a picture of a neat house on a hill. The picture drew away, and landscape appeared between the house and the man. Hobard spoke, saying his name and several other words. He is from Hillside Acres, some distance west of here, Seqiro clarified.

Now the group of them appeared. “Darius, Provos, Colene, from where?” Hobard asked.

They pretended to be slow to understand, which was reasonable enough, while they consulted mentally with each other. This was a straightforward question, but difficult to answer, assuming they wanted to give such information. How could they clarify that they were not only from three different places but from three different realities, and the horse from a fourth? That they had traveled through the Virtual Mode, which was a kind of temporary reality anchored at each of their homes, crossing other realities at ten-foot intervals, so that things could change abruptly with a single step forward? That the people, geography, and fundamental natural laws changed with each reality, so that in some animals were telepathic while in others there was super-science that allowed gravity cancellation or travel at many times the velocity of light? That Darius could perform a kind of magic in his reality, while Provos remembered the future and not the past? That each of them was associated with his/her anchor, which was both place and person, and that they could get off the Virtual Mode only through one of the five anchors that held it in place? That Nona and the place of the huge stone musical instruments had just become the fifth anchor?

No, even if there were no language barrier, they could not blab all that to these grim strangers. So what could they say? They didn’t really know what kind of a world this was, apart from the facts that it had magic and a strong upper-class/lower-class social structure. What would satisfy the despots without giving away too much?

We have come from afar by virtue of a spell, and wish only to return, Darius decided. That did seem to be the best answer.

So Darius used gestures and pointings to images to try to get that across. It turned out that the despots already knew that, they thought; they had a concept of interplanetary travel that was weird, and assumed that the party had somehow walked from one planet to another. They wanted to know the origin planet.

Colene and the others were baffled by this. How could anyone walk between planets? Even if the force of gravity did not prevent this, Earth’s moon was so far away that it would take thirty years to walk there, and the other planets were much farther away. Were there seven-league boots for this purpose?

The despots were skeptical of their confusion. It was almost as if the despots believed the visitors knew all about it, and were playing ignorant. “You are human,” Hobard said, making a number of pictures to get the concept across. Because Colene and the others were genuinely curious about the nature of this world, they drew on Seqiro’s telepathy to clarify it. The minds of the other despots remained opaque, but Hobard was trying to establish a liaison, and his mind was opening so that they could start to receive his more complicated thoughts. This was especially true when he focused on a specific thing. “You came from a human world.” World was not exactly the concept, but the exact one was not quite fathomable. Planet? Aspect? Subdivision?

“From a human world,” Darius agreed, by indicating the correct pictures. “Far away.”

Now a diagram appeared, with what might be the wires and resistors of a weird radio set. There was something naggingly familiar about it, but Colene couldn’t place it. “Which one?” Hobard demanded. One bug in the picture glowed, and then another.

Maybe we had better try to tell a bit of the truth, Colene thought to Darius. They’ll know if we claim a planet that is wrong; this is their territory.

Darius agreed. “Far in a different way,” he tried to clarify. “Not in distance, but in mode.”

But this was lost on the despots. Evidently they had no concept of the Virtual Mode or alternate realities. Indeed, their own reality seemed quite strange enough to hold their attention.

Hobard generated another picture. In its center was a shape like a hairy roach, or perhaps a hairy fat-bodied spider, for it was at the center of a weblike structure of lines. Upon the main lines extending out were smaller bugs, with finer lines radiating from them. Yet it was not a spiderweb; the lines were jagged, and took funny turns.

Then Colene placed the image. “The Mandelbrot set!” she exclaimed.

The others looked at her. Then Seqiro’s thought came, warningly: I have gotten farther into Hobard’s mind. Beware asserting yourself.

Colene was irritated at this interruption to her revelation. Why not assert myself? she demanded. I’m an assertive person.

Because they judge men and women differently, he explained. Here men are dominant. Elsewhere women are. The two cultures are enemies.

Oh. The last thing they needed was to be considered enemies before they knew their way around. Take it, Darius, she thought.

But what is this Man’s-brow set? he thought.

I’ll explain while you dominate. Tell me to shut up.

The mental exchange had been swift, but things were getting somewhat strained. Darius frowned at Colene. “Silence, girl,” he snapped.

Colene hung her head, her gesture confessing that she had spoken out of turn. Darius faced Hobard. “Where?” he asked.

The old man seemed to have lost some of his own concentration. It seemed that Colene’s outburst had held considerable significance for the despots. Since they couldn’t have understood the meaning of the words—Darius himself didn’t understand them, and he had a working knowledge of her language—it had to be because of the thing the remarkable horse was warning them about. Men and women were not equal here. A woman who asserted herself was in trouble.

Yet Nona the peasant girl had been assertive enough, and Stave had not taken offense. Did a different rule apply to the theows?

The magic image had faded. Now it reappeared. The small bug on a webline above the upper leg of the bug glowed.

Hobard pointed to the glowing bug, and tapped his foot on the floor. “Here,” he said, using his word, but the translation came through. This was where they were.

Meanwhile Colene’s mind was racing through what she remembered of the Mandelbrot set. It was named after the man who had done a special computation involving a complex equation, and plotted the result on a graph. A simple equation was something like X + Y = 10, and if X was 10, then Y had to be 0 because there was nothing left for it. If X was 9, then Y was 1, and so on until X was 0 and Y was 10. Those answers could be plotted on graph paper, with X representing up and Y the side: go up ten and across none and place a point. Then up nine and across one, and set another point. A line of points formed, and all the possible answers to that equation were on that line. Simple.

Colene had quickly gone beyond that, and used squares of X and Y to get curved lines. X2 + Y2 = Z? made a perfect circle with a radius of Z. Sine waves were trickier. But a complex equation was something else.

She had been fascinated by the new concept of fractals, which were like fractional dimensions. They enabled a person to take a simple figure and elaborate it infinitely, without taking up any more space. For example, one could start with an equilateral triangle, every angle and every side the same, then put a little triangle in the middle of each side, so that it became a six-pointed star:

_/\_ \/ \/ /____\ \/

Then smaller triangles could be added on the twelve sides of that outline, and yet smaller triangles on the new sides. The figure got more complicated, yet sat in the same space. There was no end to the additions that could be made; there was always room for yet smaller triangles.

Meanwhile the length of the outer line kept growing. If the initial triangle was three inches on a side, it was nine inches all the way around. The six-pointed star added an inch to each side, so was twelve inches around. The eighteen-pointed figure that resulted from the next round of additions was sixteen inches around. And so on; each step added more sides and points and length, yet the figure could fit on the same sheet of paper. It was an infinite process, with a finite boundary.

Colene got hazy on the technical aspects beyond that. But she knew that a man named Benoit Mandelbrot had coined the term “fractal” for this type of figure, considering the process to be like a fractional dimension. A triangle was a two-dimensional figure; a fractal based on a triangle was a two-and-a-half-dimensional figure. There were implications for the ultimate nature of reality—and, it seemed, for the Virtual Mode. Because they seemed to have stepped into a fractal reality.

Benoit Mandelbrot had plotted his complex equation, and come up with a fractal figure that was a good deal more complicated than a triangle or circle. In fact it was deemed to be the most complicated object in mathematics. It had buglike shapes, and shell shapes, and seahorse-tail shapes, and separate “floating molecules” connected by “devil’s polymer,” an intricate web of invisibly fine filament. No matter how much the magnification was increased, there were always more and smaller bugs and shells and tails. Colene had been fascinated by the Mandelbrot set, but had thought it had no immediate relevance to her life. So she had watched a video tape showing the Mandelbrot set and what were called Julia sets, which she understood were two-dimensional aspects of the larger set, and let it fade from her thoughts.

Well, that had changed. Because Hobard was telling them that this was not the planet Earth, but a Mandelbrot bug. That just might make this a Julia universe. The implications were mind-blowing.

While she worked this out, Darius was coming at it in a less theoretical manner. He was not burdened by her awareness of the mathematical aspects. “So we are here,” he was saying. “On the planet Oria. And we are a satellite of this larger planet Jupiter. And you want to know whether we come from Mercury, Venus, or Mars.” He was speaking in his own language, using different names for things, but this was the way the thoughts came to her.

She focused on this confusing alignment. In this fractal universe, it seemed that Earth did not revolve around the sun, but around Jupiter, and so did the other small planets. Each planet was a Mandelbrot bug, and Jupiter was a big bug. The webwork of lines connected the four smaller bugs to the big one; apparently gravity didn’t do the job here. Okay, if that was the way it was, that was the way it was. In some realities science worked, and in others pseudoscience like faster-than-light travel worked. Where Darius came from, a kind of sympathetic magic worked, buttressed by emotional telepathy. Here on Oria—their name for Earth—magic worked. And astronomy was weird. But at least she had a handle on it, because of her experience with the Mandelbrot set.

“We come from none of these,” Darius said. He illustrated the statement by pointing to each of the other three bug-planets in turn and shaking his head no.

Colene was sent into another bypath of realization. The Mandelbrot set was portrayed two-dimensionally, but this was a three-dimensional world. Her pictures had shown small bugs of similar size to the north and south of a large one, because the south was the mirror image of the north. The north curlicues wound clockwise, the south ones counterclockwise. The Mandelbrot set was excruciatingly well organized, on its own terms. The image Hobard generated was three-dimensional. In fact it wasn’t a picture, it was a hologram. It showed four orbiting bugs: North, South, Toward, and Away. The Mandelbrot bug was always represented as pointing its snout to the west, with its babylike bottom toward the east, so those directions weren’t available for this. So Oria was north, and Mars south, with Venus and Mercury this way and that way. All of them tiny compared to Jupiter.

But of course they weren’t from any of the other planets. They were from Earth, which was the same as Oria. But not only would this be difficult to explain, it might not be wise. Their party of four had gotten trapped in an alternate reality in which a galactic emperor intended to use them to begin his conquest of other realities. Colene had worked a trick to free their anchor in that reality, and the Virtual Mode had found a new anchor here. If these despots caught on to that, not only would Nona be in trouble, the four of them might be similarly trapped here.

But Colene knew that Darius wasn’t going to lie about it, if asked directly. He had a thing about integrity. She loved him for that, but it was now a bad problem between them. As was the matter of women: he didn’t have a thing about being limited to one.

“None?” Hobard was amazed, and King Lombard was plainly skeptical,

“From a more distant planet?” King Lombard asked. Colene got the gist from Hobard’s understanding of the question; the king’s mind remained opaque to the horse.

We’re wasting time, Colene thought to Darius. We need to get settled with these folk and get by ourselves, so we configure out how to get back through the anchor. Because this was a temporary stop; they were on their way back to Darius’ reality, where they would be together, once they worked out their problems.

To her relief, Darius agreed. “It is hard to explain. We have come a long way, and we are tired. May we eat and rest?” He did this by spreading his hands in bafflement, then letting his shoulders slump, then putting a hand to his mouth as if eating. Seqiro buttressed these signals with projected meaning, so that Hobard interpreted them correctly without realizing the source of his understanding.

Hobard translated for King Lombard. The king nodded, then gestured. Red-and-blue-clad theow servants entered, gesturing to the three visitors to accompany them.

The king is in doubt about your nature, Seqiro thought to them. He wants to know whether you are of the animus.

The animus. Provos had mentioned that, but the rest of them hadn’t yet found out what it was. That was frustrating.

Then Colene had a bright notion. Seqiro—can you reach Nona and ask her about the animus?

Yes. But I will lose touch with you while orienting on her.

We can handle that for a while. See what you can get. It may be important.

She felt his presence leave, and knew he was seeking out Nona. She should be well within his range.

Meanwhile the servants were taking them to separate chambers. Some distance apart, by the look of it. She didn’t like that, and not because of ignorance: the despots were doing it so that Darius could be seduced and she could be raped. But they were not in a position to protest, and Provos had indicated that those efforts would not be successful. Provos had also smiled mysteriously, as if there were more to it than showed. Provos wasn’t worried, of course; not only was she unlikely to be a target, not being young and innocent, she had her memory of the future.

Well, Colene was not about to let any man rape her. She had been through the experience on one occasion, and thereafter become not only smarter about situations but militant. She did not want merely to foil a rape attempt; she wanted to foil it in such a way that the man regretted ever having the notion. What could she do to Knave Naylor that would have the desired effect?

She knew what she wanted to do: fix it so that he was the one who got raped. But she saw several problems with that. The man was likely to have potent (no pun) magic which she could not counter, and if she did counter it, that would only show that she had strong magic too, and women didn’t here. In fact, it could be real trouble if she was even assertive, because women weren’t supposed to be. So she couldn’t fight him; all she could do was hide and whimper like a properly docile girl. That would get her nowhere.

She reached her chamber. It turned out to be well appointed, with running water and a big stone bathtub. What delight, in the midst of quandary.

So she ran the water, and it was hot, and she found some powder that made it bubble, and she soaked herself, truly enjoying it. It had been no lie about their being tired.

Colene. It was Seqiro’s thought.

Hey, what kept you, horseface? she replied. I missed you. Indeed she had, she realized now; there had been a lingering tightness which now faded.

I am not conversant with Nona as I am with you. It took time to gather the concepts, which she understands well, and I understood when with her mind, but feared I would not retain them.

Well, I have a rape to avoid. Give with the background.

There are two forces, perhaps opposite directions of the same force from which they draw their power of magic, he thought. The animus and the anima, the male and female principles. Here the animus governs, and the men dominate. But if the current were to change, the anima would dominate, and the female principle would govern.

It came clear as she reviewed it with him. When the men dominated, they had the strong magic—or perhaps it was the strong magic that enabled them to dominate. The women had status only up to a level below that of the men they married. Any man had power over any woman, but a low-level man knew better than to mess with the wife of a high-level man, because her man would enforce respect. When the anima came, however, the women had the magic and power, and the men served them.

The despots were simply the descendants of the leading men: the firstborn of the firstborn, as it were. The theows were the descendants of men of low status. Theoretically a despot man could marry a theow woman and elevate her status, but this seldom happened; they preferred the daughters of ranking men. If a despot took a liking to a theow girl, he simply hired her for his household, and she was his to use as he wished. Since every theow had to work for a despot, the availability was broad. This was Nona’s concern: that she would have either to marry and bear babies, which would deplete her magic, or become the plaything of a despot. It could be a liability to be beautiful, because by the time the despots tired of a theow woman, she might be too old and worn to attract a good theow man, so would be unable to marry and have a family of her own. That would mean, in turn, that she was nonproductive, and a burden to society, and she would disappear.

But with the coming of the anima, the women would have the magic, and the lastborn females of the lastborn females would be the inheritors. The status of men would derive from that of their wives, and their children would have status via their mothers. In effect, the theows would become the rulers, and the despots the servant class. So it was to the interest of the despots, including their women, to maintain the existing order. The change of animus to anima would lead to an immediate political and social and economic upheaval.

But how does it change? Colene asked.

That was where Nona came in. She was the ninthborn of the eighthborn of the seventhborn, all the way back nine generations to the common ancestor with the despot king, who was the firstborn male of the firstborn male back a similar way. The last change had occurred nine generations ago. There was a special power of nines here, or rather of a nine that followed an eight that followed a seven and so on. This was because of the nature of the planet Oria itself. Thus Nona was the one who could reverse the animus and overthrow the despots.

So what does she have to do?

That was the problem: Nona didn’t know. Only that she must seek the Megaplayers, the giants who had played the gigantic stone instruments, and gain their help. She had thought the visitors might be from those godlike folk.

And instead they were coincidental travelers on the Virtual Mode. Nona had been opening her mind to that Mode, and tuned in to it, and become an anchor figure, thinking she was doing something else.

They would be unable to use Nona’s anchor to depart this universe of Julia, unless Nona succeeded in her quest to bring the anima. Colene had no better idea how to do that than Nona did. Instead of being the creatures who could help Nona, they needed Nona’s help.

We have a problem, Colene concluded.