Key to Survival

Chapter 13 Bee-chines

"Request," Havoc said. "I need you." Gale laughed. "What, tired of your new mechanical bath girls already?"

"Negation. I merely have other business at the moment. You will need to deal with this request by the living cultures."

"Question?"

"A plant culture has a petition."

"Thus it comes to you," she agreed.

"For the admittance of a neighboring machine culture."

Gale shook her head. "Joke?"

"Negation. They are serious."

"Havoc, I have a problem with this."

"Endorsement. But it seems someone must handle the petition. Is the word 'no' in your vocabulary?"

"Annoyance. You're sticking me with the chore of telling them no."

"Affirmation. How could I ever say no to a sapient plant?" He frowned. "Besides which, Voila says you are better for this one."

She was stuck for it. "And you let your life be run by Voila?"

"Negation. Weft, maybe, but not Voila." It was the ongoing joke, with an unfortunately serious tinge. "Or Ennui."

"Ennui runs the planet, not your life."

"Acquiescence." He waited.

She sighed. "Give me the contact information. I'll take Vila."

"Appreciation." He kissed her and gave her the information.

It turned out to be a beautiful world, almost completely covered with bright blooms. The few artificial structures were shaped and colored like giant flowers.

"Ooo," Vila said appreciatively. "I like this world."

Gale laughed. "You like every world you've seen."

"All five," the girl agreed.

"Five?"

Vila counted off fingers. "Charm, Counter Charm, Earth, the other plant world, and this one."

"Is it the worlds you like, or the people on them?"

The girl counted off again. "Aura, Idyll, Monochrome, the nursemaid plant, and the carnivore plant here. I like both worlds and people."

"Carnivore? Alarm!"

Vila giggled. "Idyll told me. I haven't met her yet."

Gale relaxed. "Just be careful around carnivores."

"Affirmation."

The space shuttle landed on a monstrous leaf. Gale's awareness of the near future paths showed her where to go.

They got out and followed a path to a spherical flower or flower bud. The air was fresh and sweet. They pushed through curtain-like petals and entered the body of the flower. It shook gently, swaying, like a ship on a wave. Then they pushed back out of it.

Now they were in a much larger flower. The small one had moved, carrying them to the interview site.

"Neat," Vila said.

Before them was a giant central pistil, the female organ of a flower. It vibrated, and made a sound, a musical note.

"Greeting," a small metallic unit translated.

"Acknowledged," Gale said, and heard the translator render the word into another note.

There was a series of notes making a complex melodic fragment. "Fiolora, queen of the florals, in your terminology," the translation came.

"Gale, queen of the humans of planet Charm." She waited a moment for the translation to proceed, then added: "Vila, my daughter."

"A seedling."

Vila laughed. "Affirmation," Gale said.

"We have serious dialogue. There is a place for seedlings."

"Caution."

"Follow the Bee."

Bee? The translation unit was a small machine. But Gale didn't argue. She and Vila followed it as it buzzed across the floor of the flower and nudged through the curtain petals to another flower.

This one had wall-petals that showed geographic scenes of many types. Some were fields of flowers, some were immense forests of flowering trees, some were flower-covered mountains, or seas with floating lily-type flowers. The flowers themselves varied widely, some being monstrous, others tiny. They had many shapes and colors, and there were variegate patterns of different flowers. Overall, the chamber was remarkably beautiful and fascinating.

"Ooo," Vila repeated.

"Havoc will be sorry he didn't come," Gale murmured.

"He wanted to," Vila confided. "But Voila wouldn't let him. She said it had to be you."

That was interesting news. "Question," Gale asked the translation unit. "Where do we go from here?"

This time there was no music; the Bee-chine answered directly. "This is for the sapling. She may view any pictures she chooses. She has merely to orient on a petal and it will animate, showing the scene alive. Example:" It hovered before a field of red and blue flowers.

The picture expanded, as though they were approaching the scene, overlapping the surrounding panels. The flowers became large and clear, swaying gently in the breeze. Eight-legged insects climbed their stems, gathering their pollen, storing it in leg baskets and moving on. That alone signaled a different world, because on Charm insects were five-legged, and six-legged on Earth. Small animals moved among the stems, grazing on lesser vegetation.

The unit flew back somewhat. The scene contracted. It was no longer being addressed.

Gale saw the way of it. "Would you like to visit here while I talk with Queen Fiolora in the next flower?"

"Affirmation!" Vila was already orienting on a mountain scene, witching it expand awesomely. She seemed almost to be standing on the steep flowery slope. She absolutely loved nature; this was ideal for her.

Gale nodded. "Stay here, or return to me when you wish. Signal me telepathically if there is any problem."

"Sure, mommy," the child said, her attention focused on the plants and creatures of the mountain.

Gale followed the translator Bee back to Fiolora. "I presume my child will be safe." Her view of the near future paths indicated this was true.

"It is a tourist station," the Bee replied. "Tourists are safe."

That did make sense. Gale approached the queen flower. She brought out her dulcimer, applied her hammers, and played the sounds for "Greeting, appreciation."

Fiolora wavered as if shook by a sudden gust of wind. "You spoke directly!" her music said.

"Affirmation," she played. Then she spoke. "I have picked up only a few words, but will increase my vocabulary as we go. Direct communication seems more personal."

"Impressed. We anticipated less. There are many applicants for admission to the living culture coalition. We belong, but our associates do not, and there may be objection."

"Your associates are machines?"

"Affirmation."

"You understand we are at war with the machines?"

"Clarification: there are different machine cultures, as there are different living cultures. These ones are allies."

Gale shook her head. "I have a problem with this, and I suspect the Living Cultures Coalition does too. The machines have various and sometimes sophisticated devices and approaches. My husband has taken as a mistress a humanoid robot, which is a machine in the form of a fetching human woman. She has features no living culture can match when fashioning machines. This is just one example. How can you be sure these machine associates were not also sent by the malign machines?"

"We are sure, for several reasons. We will present these reasons, if you will receive them."

"That is what I am here for. I promise to listen. I can't promise to agree."

"Satisfactory. One reason is their age. They have been with us for millions of years. The enemy machines have been on the scene for less than one million years."

"Mutation? Could it not happen to your machines?"

"Unlikely. They have quality control."

"Suppose the malign machines send an agent to change your machines' program? They could become your enemy instantly."

"Unlikely."

"Question?"

"Ours have empathy. The malign machines lack empathy. They would be unable to reprogram ours. The circuitry is incompatible."

"Empathy! This is a living quality."

"Negation. It is a quality most living creatures possess and most machines lack. It is not inherent in either form, and the lack of it is not inherent."

"Amazement."

"But we do not expect you to take our word. You must judge them for yourself."

"I believe I must. My doubt remains. An a meeting be arranged?"

"Needless. You have already met."

Gale paused, then realized. "The translator!"

"Introduction: Bee-chine. Queen Gale Human."

"Greeting," Gale said faintly. She had been talking with and through the machine all along. "I assumed you were a slave unit, without sentience."

"I am a unit, governed by my nature, but not a slave. I am sentient and, in association, sapient."

"Association?"

"Your term is symbiosis. We exist with the flower folk, and can not survive without them, or they without us."

"Symbiosis!" Suddenly Gale understood why she, rather that Havoc, had been selected for this mission. She was the Glamor of Lichen, a symbiotic species, and thus she specialized in symbiosis also. But she had never imagined a plant/machine symbiosis. "Clarification."

"We machines are mobile," the Bee-chine said. "We can perform tasks requiring mobility. The flowers are telepathic; they can communicate far more effectively than we do. We work together for mutual benefit."

"Confirmation: you evolved together?"

"Affirmation. We machines occupy the niche on your planets occupied by insects. No insects evolved here. But our collaboration goes beyond that. It enabled us both to go to space."

Gale shook her head. "Amazement."

"To us, it was a surprise to discover that similar robots did not exist elsewhere," the Queen said. "We thought that the natural order as it exists on our planet was typical. But we have found it nowhere else."

Could it actually be? Friendly machines? "I would like to know more," Gale said. "What powers you? Surely you do not have externally supplied fuel. Batteries?"

"Negation," the Bee said. "Heat differential. We evoke electric current from any sharp difference: light and shadow, snow and water, wind and matter. We can store energy briefly, but need a regular input. The curtain I'm sitting on is cool, the adjacent air warm. Differentials are nearly universal."

"Do you have gender?"

"Affirmation. I am male."

"How did you achieve consciousness?"

"Feedback circuitry. When we first formed, one feedback enabled continuing animation. Another enabled awareness. It wasn't enough for us to form a community, but the flowers assisted with their telepathy."

"One thing led to another," Fiolora said. "So we conjecture. This was millions of years ago, before the dawn of our memory. We have worked together so long we would not discontinue even if we could. We unify the Bees; they facilitate our needs."

"And empathy. How did you develop that?"

"Also lost in the far past. At some point we learned to feel what the plants felt, and to act on it. It facilitates interaction."

"It's another feedback circuit?"

"Similar. Mirror circuitry. We emulate the feeling we observe in the plants."

"You have feeling?"

"Affirmation."

"Fear, pain, hope, joy?"

"We learned these things via empathy, and now experience them ourselves."

"Yet—" Gale broke off. "Vila!" For her daughter's mind trace had abruptly faded.

"Concern," Fiolora said. "The display flower says she entered a portal."

"Question?" Gale asked as she ran toward the other flower.

The Bee paced her. "It is a portal for tourists. They look at pictures, select one, and step into that scene. That aspect was turned off. It must have gotten turned on again."

Gale was searching the near future paths, but they did not show Vila. Somehow the girl had left the entire local framework.

She pushed through the petals and entered the display chamber. The pictures were there as before. Vila wasn't.

"She will be safe," the Bee said reassuringly. "Tourists are not consumed."

"Where is she?" Gale was suppressing a feeling of desperation. It wasn't normal for her paths sensing to let her down. And why was there no telepathic link?

The Bee buzzed to a machine panel set in the flower chamber. "Transport has been activated. The panels have been retuned to be physical as well as visual portals. This should not have occurred."

Gale went to the panel and spread her awareness. The traces of Vila were there. "She did it," she said grimly.

"She must have been curious. She's like that." She looked around. "But which portal did she take?"

It was impossible to tell. The girl had stood in the center of the chamber, and had merely to turn to face any panel. She could have invoked it merely by looking directly at it, and then stepped into it. The portal would have returned to panel status after being used.

"Why can't I find her telepathically?"

"The portals lead to other worlds in other star systems," the Bee explained. "They are beyond telepathic range."

Gale sighed. She would simply have to check each one until she found her daughter.

"We will help," the Bee said. "We regret this accident."

"You should have locked them in visual status!" she snapped.

"We did."

Gale paused. "Then how did she change them?"

"She must have used the telepathic code."

Which she read in a flower mind. Gale realized that she had underestimated her daughter.

"Apology," she said absently as she oriented on a petal panel.

"I will accompany you," the Bee said. "I know all the flowers of the tourist gardens."

"Welcome."

"Caution: better to leave your clothing here, lest it be soiled. The flowers don't properly understand apparel."

She didn't have time to argue. She doffed her clothing and set it in a neat pile. She focused again on the panel.

The panel expanded. Gale stepped forward—and was on the world it represented. This had huge bright flowers on head-high stems that turned to face her.

Greeting, tourist, the closest plant's thought came.

"I'm not a tourist," Gale snapped.

Ah. Then you are prey. Glistening tentacular leaves reached toward her.

"Negation!" the Bee said, verbally and musically. "She is a tourist looking for her tourist child."

A dripping thorn touched her arm. Irritated in more than one sense, Gale zapped it with an electric jolt. It jerked back, wilting.

"And a Glamor," the Bee added, seeming amused. Had it delayed that clarification deliberately?

Gale spread her clairvoyance and telepathic sense, searching for Vila. But the child was not present.

"Not here," she said. "I must try another."

"Here," the Bee said. Behind it the outline of a panel formed in the air. "Appreciation." Gale stepped through it.

They were back in the original flower chamber, surrounded by panels. Gale turned to the next petal and stepped through.

This time she stood on a promontory overlooking an awesome valley. Swaths of colors covered it, patches of particular flowers. Two bright suns were in the sky: this was indeed a completely different system. It was beautiful, but she hardly cared about that at the moment.

She spread her awareness again. There were myriad flower minds here, but not Vila's. "Back," she said.

The Bee formed another portal. Gale stepped though, and was in an enormous cavern whose walls were covered with flowering vines.

The perfume of their ambiance was almost stifling. Flowers were plant genitals, reproductive organs made obvious and attractive, and they enhanced it by odor and pheromones. Suddenly Gale felt the urgent need to mate.

"Check quickly," the Bee said. "I will be overcome soon."

But she needed more time. "Go ahead and indulge them," she said. "I'll catch you when I'm ready to depart."

Immediately the Bee flew to a small red flower, diving into its half-closed chamber and rolling madly. Pollen coated his wings, legs, and body. Then he emerged and buzzed to another bloom, a blue one, and entered similarly, spreading red pollen and picking up blue pollen. Gale could tell from his mind that this was an intense sexual experience for both Bee and flowers. It was difficult for her to hold back from going similarly into one of the larger flowers.

"Do it!" the Bee called.

Why not? She went to a giant green flower and climbed into its powdery environment. My child—is she here? She thought as she rolled, feeling an orgasmic pleasure wherever the powder touched her skin.

Negation, the flower responded. You are the only one of your species here.

Appreciation, Gale thought as she rolled out of the flower and went to another, a blue one. She rolled again, and the green powder mixed with the blue, but also fell into the flower, pollinating it. Again she experienced the whole-body orgasm of that interaction.

Soon she was satisfied that Vila had not come here. She hauled herself out of the flowers, fighting off the desire to lose herself in perpetual orgasm. "Bee!"

The Bee appeared. A portal formed behind him. They tumbled through together.

They were both covered with multi-colored powders. "We must clean ourselves, lest we succumb to the urge to mate with each other," the Bee said.

"Agreement!" For it wasn't really a joke, despite the considerable disparity in their forms and sizes. She remained horrendously turned on.

"The black portal."

She turned to the black petal, which expanded into a door. She lunged through, finding herself in a drenching rain storm on a mossy landscape. Good enough; of course the flowers didn't have human style artificial showers. They utilized natural ones. The water was warm and clean, and in moments so was she. The sexual urge was fading.

"Here," the Bee said, flying to an open shelter. She hadn't realized that he had come through with her, but of course he had to, to open the way back.

She followed him to the shelter, which was a crude framework made from fallen branches and overlapping leaves. Hot air gusted from a crevice in the ground, drying them. This was evidently a volcanic vent adapted to this purpose.

"The tourists must love this," Gale remarked.

"It is a honeymoon site," the Bee agreed. "They indulge in powdering, then indulge together, and finally clean off here. The flowers are glad to cooperate."

"You're a machine, yet you react to the powder?"

"I am a machine evolved to react to pollen," he agreed. "In the normal course we go constantly among the flowers, spreading and receiving joy."

"Curiosity: how would you and I be able to mate, being of entirely different species?"

"I would roll in your hair, spreading powder, achieving joy therefrom. You would feel the powder also."

Gale nodded. That powder spread across her head would affect her thoughts. Then she remembered that her hair was not limited to her head. The powder would affect more than her mind.

She was dry. "Time to resume the search," she said briskly.

The Bee formed another portal, and they stopped through. They were back in the central flower chamber.

This time she paused before visiting another world. Where would Vila be most likely to go? The steep flowery mountain slope? The sea with floating flowers? The giant flowering trees with the activity way up in the tops? The carnivorous plants?

There it was. The girl was fascinated with plants that ate animals. She would orient on them, not realizing that this time it would be more than just a picture.

Gale focused on the carnivore panel. It expanded, and she and the Bee went through.

She stood before a giant maw with tooth-like petals. Digestive saliva dripped slowly from the upper to the lower spikes. A tongue-like petal writhed restlessly within.

Gale spread her awareness—and found Vila. She was indeed in this framework. But the paths were vague, and her mind was dull. Vila!

There was no answer.

"We seek a tourist child," the Bee said to the plant. "Did she pass this way?"

The plant vibrated musically. "Affirmation. Young female of this species."

"Where is she?" Gale asked tightly.

"She played with Vinos, and he hurled her into the deeper forest."

"He what?" Gale asked sharply.

"Vinos is a traveler vine," the Bee explained quickly. "He conveys tourists to the deeper forest for better viewing of the predators. He throws them from loop to loop."

"Then I must follow that route. Where is he?"

A thick vine swung down from a high branch. It vibrated. "I am Vinos," the Bee translated.

"Take me where you took my child."

"Enter the basket." A woven green network of branches slid down along the vine.

Gale sat in the basket. It lifted, swung back and forth, then launched her through the air. Right to a similar basket that neatly caught her, then swung similarly to hurl her another stage. It was similar to the mode of conveyance in the Green Chroma, where big tentacles swung gondolas through the forest. Vila would have considered this familiar, and fun.

After a dizzying traverse the motion stopped. "This is the region," the Bee said.

"Vila!" Gale called. Still no response.

"Where is the tourist child?" the Bee asked the nearest flower. This was one of the giant ones, capable of taking in a person Vila's size.

The plant vibrated. "She was tired. Dolly took her in."

"Show me," Gale said.

The Bee flew to a nearby flower that resembled a giant clown-face with huge iridescent eyes.

"Open," the Bee said.

The painted mouth cranked open. There inside was a tongue that looked like a friendly six legged dog. It was a lure to attract children. And there behind it lay Vila, naked, unconscious in a pool of saliva. Her mind showed she was alive, but without volition.

Gale kept a tight rein on her reactions. "Is that thing eating her?"

"Negation. It sedated her so she would sleep. She is safe."

"Safe? In the maw of a carnivorous plant?" Yet as she spoke she realized it was true. The plant was not digesting Vila, it was letting her lie in a place where nothing else would molest her.

"Appreciation, Dolly," the Bee said. "Now wake the child."

The color of the saliva shifted. Vila stirred. Consciousness was returning. She sat up, rubbing her eyes.

Then she saw Gale. "Mommy!"

"Vila!" Gale replied, hugely relieved.

The girl scrambled to her feet. "I got lost and so tired, but I saw this doll, and knew it was all right. I guess I fell asleep." She ran to hug her mother, getting sticky saliva smeared on them both.

"This is near the edge of the tourist zone," the Bee explained. "Dolly knew it wasn't safe for her to wander farther. So she put her down for a nap."

Now that the tension was off, Gale saw that it was so. Dolly was a carnivorous plant, but honored the rule: no eating of tourists. Further, she had safeguarded the child from possible harm beyond. It had been a judicious decision, done the only way she could, since she could neither move nor speak to Vila, lacking translation.

"Appreciation," Gale said. "How may I thank her?"

"The tourist thanks you for your service," the Bee said to Dolly. "Queen Fiolora will send you a fat vole to eat."

The mouth slowly closed. So did the painted eyes.

The Bee opened the portal and they returned to the central chamber. They went again to the shower realm, where they washed off the saliva. Gale realized how readily it could have contained digestive enzymes instead of merely sleep-inducing ones.

"Now do you know better than to fiddle with settings you do not understand?" Gale asked Vila severely.

"I already knew better, mommy. I just couldn't resist."

And she was only five years old. Gale sighed, and hugged her again.

In due course they were back in the main chamber, clothed; Vila had somehow picked up on the nudity policy and left her clothing neatly stored there. They returned to the queen.

"Apology for the interruption," Gale said.

"Understanding. You are a mother."

"Agreement," Gale said, smiling. She turned to Fiolora. "Where were we?"

"You were questioning the Bee-chine about his sentience and feeling."

Gale nodded. "I think I am now satisfied that he has these qualities. But I fear there will be considerable resistance in other cultures to the idea of machines joining our war against machines."

"They will accept your judgment," Fiolora said.

"I am not yet sure of my judgment. It just seems to me that the affinity of a machine should be with another machine."

"Understanding," the Bee said. "But our affinity is with our plant associates. We exist to service them, and can't feature doing otherwise."

"Perhaps you should visit a home hive, so see how the Bees operate in their own environment," Fiolora said.

Gale nodded. "This may be worthwhile. I do need to understand them well."

"Follow me." The Bee flew to the side and out of the flower.

Gale picked Vila up and flew after him. Soon they were cruising across the landscape, weaving around the thickly nested flowers. They reached a field of flowers.

The bee hovered here. "Admittance" he said, translating his signal for their benefit.

In a moment a portion of the flower bed lifted, revealing a ramp leading down into the ground. Gale set Vila back on her feet, and they walked down, following the Bee.

"Regret we can't show you every detail," the Bee said at he flew. "But we are small and you are large. This is our public display access, for tourists."

"Understanding," Gale said.

The passage led to a large cavern-like enclosure well below the surface. Thousands of Bees buzzed through it, going to and from small cells lining the dome-shaped wall. Others walked along the surface. Gale noticed that as each met another, their antennae touched, in the manner of Earth ants. That was evidently how they communicated with each other, lacking telepathy.

"Here we make our replacement units," the Bee explained. "After a time we wear out, and there are accidents, and some get lost, so a constant supply of new Bees is necessary. The workers bring the tools and raw materials and put them together, each doing his or her specific part."

"Assembly line!" Vila said brightly, having started school and learned the concept.

"Similar," the Bee agreed.

"It must be a job to bring all the supplies here," Gale said.

"Accuracy. But we are in touch with other hives across the planet. This is one service the flowers do for us. They communicate with the flowers near the other hives, and enable us to deliver what is needed in the correct amounts. The hives specialize to a degree; some mine for metals, while others refine more esoteric ingredients. Some process the special circuits we require, for consciousness and empathy."

"Empathy," Gale said. "You actually make circuits for it, and install them in Bees?"

"Affirmation. It is vital to do it right, so each Bee can function properly and serve the flowers well."

"Curiosity: if you craft new Bees from raw materials, what is the need for gender or sex?"

"Perhaps a parallel to living reproduction is in order. You are made of animated proteins. Can you make new life in a laboratory?"

"Negation. Even the synthetic people termed the fifths actually start with fertilized eggs generated by living folk. Only life can beget life. All else is feeding and environment."

"Agreement. We are not alive, but there is an essence that we are unable to make: the basis for sentience. The raw materials can make the semblance of a Bee, and it might even operate on a crude level, but it would never have sentience, let alone sapience. Only running machines already possessed of this quality can beget running machines with the capacity for it. Thus we, like you, require gender and sex, to integrate the running essence on a small scale that can be encapsulated in an egg unit and developed with care into a new Bee. So it has been from the dawn of our evolution. The secret of our origin as independent sentient machines remains obscure. We don't know how it first occurred."

"Neither do we, for life," Gale said. "It occurs throughout the galaxy, but we don't know whether it came to be separately on each origin planet, or whether it spread from some common source. We can't make life out of protein. We have tried."

"So have we, to make an original sentience, with no success." Gale considered. "The distinction between 'running' and 'living' becomes indistinct."

"Agreement. But there is a difference. Our functioning bodies are not at all similar."

"Yet we seem to be turned on by the same sexual pheromones. You and I both were put into ecstasy by the flowers."

"Coincidence. The plants are alive, and draw on elements common to life. We associate closely with them, so evolved to relate to their processes. We are unable to breed except in flowers. Had there been a female Bee there—"

"Or a male human," Gale agreed.

"As it was, we were incomplete, so suffered rapture without actually breeding. This is why we do not go among flowers in pairs, until we have breeding in mind."

This brought a notion to Gale. "The enemy machines: do they have genders and sex too, for similar reason?"

"We have not encountered them directly, for if we had we would now be defunct. But we understand from reports that they do not, though they may be able to emulate gender and sex when dealing with living species."

"They can," she agreed with a wry smile. "They made a humanoid robot—that is, a machine with the semblance of a human woman, and she is quite apt in performance. My husband has taken her as a mistress."

"An enemy machine!"

"She's nice," Vila said.

"You surely know your business, but this is dangerous. Why would you allow the agent of a culture that means to destroy you and all else in the galaxy to exist among you? She could kill your man at any time."

"Doubtful," Gale said. "He's a Glamor. But also, she is programmed to love him. We have viewed the future paths associated with her, and she never attempts to harm him or any other human being."

"Like that plant carnivore who protected me," Vila said. "She knew I was good enough to eat, but she had a deal with Queen Fiolora to keep the tourists safe."

"An apt analogy," the Bee agreed. "We lack that future paths seeing you mention. So I can appreciate that you have a basis for such tolerance, though the concept makes me nervous. At any rate, we believe that the enemy machines do not reproduce sexually. They have found the secret of generating running from inanimate materials. That makes them more dangerous."

"Doubt," Gale said. "It makes them less like living things. They can emulate feeling, but it is not inherent."

"It makes them able to be destructive in ways we could never be. That is one reason we could not stand against them."

"It is one reason you align with life," Gale said. "You have conscience and empathy."

"Agreement."

"I am satisfied. I will recommend that you be admitted to the Living Cultures Coalition. Perhaps as one aspect of a symbiosis with the flowers. Others will decide, but this much I can do."

"Appreciation. We believe your recommendation will be decisive."

"There is another matter. I wonder whether we can arrange a trade."

"Question?"

"The female machine—the robot—lacks empathy, and is in need of it. She is not ill-willed, merely unable to feel what living folk feel. Would you be able to modify her to include an empathy circuit?"

"Doubtful. A simple machine, yes. But the enemy machines are level 2.5, while we are level 2.0. They are beyond our sophistication."

"But could you do it, theoretically?"

"Theoretically, provided there were three conditions. She would have to be willing, which is unlikely because she has been crafted by those who desire only destruction for all others. Even were she willing, we would be able to implant only the data for the circuit; she would have to invoke it by her choice, and she would see no need. And she would have to be in orgasm while we operated."

"Question!"

"We learned of the access mode the enemy machines use, for their routine servicing of units that malfunction or require upgrading. They did not want it obvious or easy, so that others could not interfere. So they hid it in a state of experience: sexual orgasm. She would have to be in sustained sexual ecstasy. This, too, seems unlikely."

"We'll see," Gale said. "Now I wonder whether we could provide you with future paths seeing, in trade."

"Your living circuits are incompatible with ours. There can be no transfer of that nature."

"But the robot—you could use one of her circuits, if you got it."

"Perhaps," the Bee agreed dubiously.

"You might copy it when you had access to her data bank. It would be limited to far-future seeing—a month to eternity—but might still be useful to you."

"Agreement!"

"Can you talk Shee into it?" Vila asked. "She's already jealous of you and Monochrome."

"Negation. She knows her place, and accepts it. She is programmed to be never more than Havoc's second mistress."

"But now she's to become a Glamor!"

Gale smiled. "I am already a Glamor. So is Monochrome. Havoc is lucky."

"And now he's got those five bath girls too." Vila giggled. "You and Mono should take a bath with him and them, all at once."

"Vila! Do you think we would tease your father like that?"

The girl wasn't fooled. "And Opaline. He likes her too. And Symbol. That would make an even ten."

"Symbol's tied up with her family. It will be a few more years before she's ready to resume mistressing."

Vila pondered briefly. "Then we need someone else for the tenth. The old bath girls have long since disappeared into families. Who remains young and luscious and in love with him?"

"All the nubile girls of the planet," Gale said. "But they can't really compete with Glamors or robots."

"Frustration!" But then she brightened. "Weft!"

Gale stifled a burst of laughter. Young, luscious, and in love with Havoc: Weft certainly qualified.

"Complication."

"Oh, I know. Incest. Tek—tek—"

"Technically."

"Yes. But maybe she could go no fault and wear a mask."

"Maybe," Gale agreed, still amused. "Instead of a bath, perhaps a giant flower," the Bee suggested, sharing the mischief. "I believe we could recruit one, or several."

"A flower bath!" Vila said.

Gale considered. What a prank to play on Havoc! "I will see what can be done." She focused on the Bee. "But first we must see about that empathy program. Let's verify it with Fiolora."

"She'll love it!" Vila said. "The empathy and the bath."

"Agreement," the Bee said.

Taken as a whole, this mission was concluding well.