Purple touched a b.u.t.ton. One wall of the chamber became a video screen. It showed Purple himself challenging the particular Hectare he worked with to a game.
Hoo! As an act of foolhardiness, that could hardly be surpa.s.sed. But of course Purple hadn"t done it; he had been framed. Lysander understood now how apt Nepe was at emulations; she could have made herself resemble Purple and recorded that challenge, and had it sent to the Hectare when she was safely away.
She had a grudge against Purple; Lysander hoped she never had a grudge against him!
Purple nodded. "Flach/Nepe," he said. "I"ve tangled with that brat before. If I don"t kill her, she"ll kill me."
Obviously Nepe could do that, any time she chose. But she wasn"t attacking Purple, she was using him. His understandable nervousness about the high-stakes game with the Hectare was causing him to be careless, as she had antic.i.p.ated, and she was pulling a stunt Purple didn"t dream of.
But it seemed that Purple had coerced Brown into putting her golems at the disposal of the Hectare invader, and to serve him personally without trying to do him direct harm. Brown had evidently agreed because Purple was blackmailing her-but also because this allowed her to help Nepe. What a devious interaction this was!
They proceeded to the Game Annex, where the Hectare and its second waited. Its second was Tan. That gave Lysander a momentary start, but he realized that it made sense; the Hectare were playing the game by local rules, and needed competent local advice. So the two quislings were on opposite sides in this matter, but united in their support for the invader. Another interesting situation!
The game proceeded. The irrepressible Game Computer discarded their grid choices, as was its wont, and a.s.signed them a compet.i.tive play set in ancient Crete, of planet Earth"s history. The chamber a.s.sumed the likeness of the old stone palace.
Too bad he had been unable to obtain access to the game source code. He could have found out why it aborted the regular grid, and corrected the malfunction. But now that he knew that the Adepts had known his nature, he understood why Blue had given him make-work instead of real work. That malfunction must relate in some way to the Adepts" plotting.
The Hectare selected an actress by picking her up and carrying her away. She was a robot, but she screamed protest and kicked her feet, seeming exactly like a ravished maiden. Lysander thought of Echo, and could believe it. The robots of this planet were extremely sophisticated, emulating human beings almost perfectly.
He would have liked to watch the game, but his lips and legs felt Nepe"s pressure. That meant she had somewhere else to go, and he would have to make an excuse. "I don"t care to watch this," he said in Tsetse"s dulcet voice, and backed away. Brown saw her, and did not protest. No one cared about a serf servant when there was more interesting business afoot. In a moment he was out of the chamber and on his own.
Nepe had achieved the first pan of her plan: she had gotten them past the Hectare alerts, that would have stopped them had they not been an authorized part of Purple"s party. But what was next?
Guided by her pressure on his legs and backside, he walked down the hall, not to the concourse, but to a service area. When there was no one to observe, he ducked into the machine pa.s.sages, and caught a rubbish cart to the Hectare district. Nepe was playing a dangerous game!
They came to a particular apartment. Suddenly Lysander realized whose it must be: the Hectare who was playing the game with Purple! Not only was Nepe using Lysander to a.s.sume grown human form, and using Purple to get past the alerts, she was raiding the Hectare"s den itself, while the game kept it occupied.
They came to a service access panel. Now there was pressure on his hands and on his back: she wanted him to go forward through the panel. But of course he couldn"t do that; it was closed, and any attempt by an unauthorized party to force it open would set off a strident alarm. In fact, entry by the wrong party would do the same, even if no force was used. Only the Hectare code would do, here. Which meant that Nepe knew about that, too. The Adepts had done a real job of investigation on him!
Very well. He had to cooperate if he was to get to the root of their plot, even if he facilitated that plot along the way. Nepe"s nervy plot had him in thrall too. If he didn"t do it, they would find someone else to, or some other way; he knew that the Hectare had seriously underestimated the cunning of the resistance. Which was, of course, why agents like him were a.s.signed. He represented the backup, to make sure that there were no devastating surprises. He had already learned enough to justify that policy.
He tapped in the code pattern. The panel slid open. He stepped into the apartment, setting off no alarm.
Nepe guided him to an antechamber, where a special unit sat on a table. She made him use the Hectare code to open it. Inside, carefully aerated and protected from all shocks of motion or temperature, lay a set of small, intertwined tentacles.
Lysander stared. Oh, no! Only now did he appreciate the full daring of Nepe"s mission. This was a Hectare seed!
Lysander"s brain had been taken from a living Hectare whose body had suffered irreparable damage. His memories of his prior life had been eliminated, but his knowledge of Hectare custom and culture had remained, so that he would never lose his fundamental ident.i.ty. He knew the significance of this seed, and knew that Nepe knew it too. The Adepts must have done meticulous research, and acquainted her with exactly what she needed to know.
Human beings reproduced in the fashion of their mammalian kind: the male, when amorously inclined, used his organ of intromission to insert a number-a considerable number-of viable seeds in the receptive chamber of the female. The species was so organized that there was continual interest in this activity, so that such insertions were made even when there was no reasonable prospect for viability. This was what he had done with Alyc, and thought to do with Jod"e, and had done most recently with Echo. He knew that his android body did not produce viable seed; it would never merge with the female seed and form a new living ent.i.ty. Only with the help of laboratory enhancement could an android produce offspring. Female androids generally served as brood mares for the embryos of living human women who preferred not to interrupt their social schedules by being gravid. Humanoid robot females could do the same, to a lesser extent. How magic affected this he wasn"t sure; strange things were happening on the planet, and perhaps strange crossbreeds were occurring. Nepe herself was an example.
Hectare reproduced differently. They were of one s.e.x, but did pair off to breed. Under their mantle of tentacles, normally concealed from exterior view, were their appendages, which were small and immobile tentacles. Periodically one of these would ripen, at which time the Hectare would seek a compatible Hectare with a similarly ripened member. The two would approach each other and if the compatibility persisted, engage in what the human kind would term a s.e.xual encounter. Their two ripe tentacles would twine around each other, and in the ecstasy of the experience, the Hectare would separate and break off the members. The interlocked tentacles, each containing the chromosomal complement of the parent, represented the nucleus of a new Hectare.
But the course of development was not automatic. The Hectare seed had to be planted in the soil of the home planet, the only place where it would grow. It could survive in stasis for a time, originally brief but with the aid of modern technology up to a year, if the proper environment was maintained. That was the purpose of the housing unit: it provided the environment of stasis, so that the seed could be shipped to the home planet for planting. Hectare did not have families; all seeds were treated equivalently in the protected nursery. They sent out roots to gather nutrients, and drew energy from the sun. They also developed their mantles of tentacles to catch insects and other prey, and their eye complexes, that gave them their beauty. In time they achieved the ma.s.s and resources to enable them to become mobile. As they did so, they were captured by the nursery caretakers and brought to special chambers for education. In due course they would emerge as adult Hectare, ready to partic.i.p.ate in Hectare civilization, and to help extend it to other planets.
What did the human resistance want with a Hectare seed?
The covering of flesh that made him resemble the woman Tsetse rippled and changed. Nepe"s main ma.s.s was overlaid at his chest and hips; this now drew the thinner sections into itself, forming a single ma.s.s at the region of his stomach. As it slid away from his legs and arms he saw nothing: he remained magically invisible, even to himself.
A mouth formed in the bloated belly he now carried. "Lift me to the seed, then carry me away from here swiftly."
Lysander did not like this at all. He was after all Hectare himself, despite the human body and human attributes he had a.s.sumed. How far did his mission require him to go? To interfere with a Hectare seed would be to provoke a ferment that could bring about extraordinary mischief.
But if he did not, Nepe would probably turn him in, and his chance to fathom the Adept plot would be gone. She was putting him to the test, and there would be no evasion.
He made his decision. Better to sacrifice one Hectare seed than the mission, because the mission could affect the Hectare dominance of this planet. What was one seed, which might not survive, compared to the planet, which was important in its small fashion to the alliance dominance of the galaxy?
He put his hands on the ball of flesh that was Nepe and heaved it up and over the unit. She weighed about half as much as a grown man, and probably never would get beyond three-quarters man-weight, but what a creature she already was! The Hectare, if they but could know it, should be thankful that there was only one of her on the planet. As it was, even that one might be more than they could handle. Two would swamp them!
A pseudopod extended from the ma.s.s, depending toward the seed. It touched the seed, and enfolded it, and then retracted, carrying the seed. In a moment he held the ball again, with the Hectare seed hidden inside it.
He moved the glob to the side and down; his arms were tiring. He didn"t know whether Nepe wanted to clothe him again, or do something else, and hesitated to inquire. There was probably an aural monitor that would set off an alarm at the sound of his voice. Nepe had spoken, but she might know of the monitor and how to avoid triggering it. She seemed to know everything else, including exactly how to use him to achieve her mission.
There was pressure on one side of his hands, from protoplasm that wrapped around them, so he carried her that way. It was toward the service access panel they had used to enter. He put a foot through, then carefully shifted to bring Nepe through. But the extra weight was awkward, and his shoulder brushed the edge of the opening.
Immediately an alarm sounded. A device in the ceiling spun about, searching for the intrusion; the moment it spotted him, a laser beam or worse would strike. They were in for it now!
Lysander jammed his body through the hole and shoved to the side, to get out of the line of fire. But there wasn"t room for them both; Nepe would get tagged. So he heaved her into the darkness beyond like a big bowling ball, rolling her out of danger. Then he tapped the Hectare "At Ease" code on the wall.
The alarm silenced. The Hectare codes overrode all else. But the brief sounding of the alarm would alert the Hectare security force, and there would be a prompt investigation. He had to get far away from here in a hurry!
He closed the access, so that their mode of exit would not be immediately apparent, and let his eyes adjust to the darkness. He knew there was very little time to waste.
Where was Nepe? She had disappeared, and he just had to trust that she would know how to manage; he would only get them both caught if he searched for her.
He would probably get caught anyway! He heard a machine coming his way, and there was nowhere to scramble out of its way. He huddled against the dark metal wall, waiting for whatever offered.
It was a delivery wagon, self-propelled and empty. It evidently did double duty as a cleanup unit, sent automatically when the alarm went off. It came to the dead-end that was Lysander"s niche, and flashed a beam directly on him.
And through him! The magic still made him invisible, and the machine didn"t see him! It spun around and rolled away. He had a.s.sumed that the effect was limited to the perception of living creatures. He had underestimated it again.
How far did this magic extend? His shoulder had set off the alarm, and Brown had felt his real body (as covered by Nepe), so obviously touch was not included. Nepe had told him not to speak, so sound probably was not included either. But could he walk with impunity among the machines, as long as he did not touch them? It was worth trying.
He walked, and the machines ignored him. He made his way down the dark pa.s.sage, walking between the tracks of the delivery system. It was working!
Then he heard a larger machine coming-and there was no room to get out of the way. If it did not see him, it would run him down. He turned and sprinted for the last alcove, but the machine was too fast; he knew it would overhaul him first.
Then it slowed, and he made it to the alcove and swung himself out of the way. The machine moved past, picking up speed, and in a moment was gone.
Lysander had to pause to think about that. There had been no reason for the machine to slow; it was a level track, and it had the programmed right-of-way. No reason to slow-except to avoid hitting Lysander.
The machine had known he was there, yet given no other indication. What did that mean?
Nepe"s father Mach was a self-willed machine. He must have given a directive, that the machines obeyed. To ignore Lysander as if they did not see him, but not to hurt him. So that he could complete his mission for the Adepts. The magic did not after all affect the machines, but their orders did.
He felt a shiver. He was sure the Hectare did not know about this. How much else was going on under their noses? If a machine could be instructed to ignore a spy, why couldn"t it be instructed to a.s.sa.s.sinate a Hectare leader?
He was right to pursue his mission, even though it facilitated the opposition. He had to get down to the fundamental ploy of the resistance. The Adepts might let him do that, because they believed they could not win without his help. He was now less certain about that than they were. This planet was deviously dangerous.
He made his way to an exit panel near the concourse. He would have to get out, trusting his spell of invisibility to humans and avoidance by machines to protect him, and try to find Nepe. She still needed his help, for she could not masquerade as Tsetse alone.
He opened the panel and stepped out. He took one step-and a serf blundered into him. Lysander had done the most elementarily foolish thing: he had a.s.sumed that other people would automatically avoid collisions. But they couldn"t, because Lysander was invisible to them. They were not machines.
"Hey, there"s a man here!" the serf exclaimed, groping as he caught his balance. "I can"t see him!"
Citizen Tan"s voice came over the speaker system. "Hold him! We want him!"
Lysander brought up his hand and pinched the man"s neck, making him gasp with pain and let go. But half a dozen others were now closing in. These were serfs who had volunteered to serve in the new order; they wore the identifying arm bands with tentacle pattern that denoted lesser collaborators. They spread their arms, to prevent anyone unseen from pa.s.sing by them, and more were converging from beyond. Lysander knew he would not be able to fight his way clear of this. All because of his completely stupid mistake!
Then another serf lurched toward him. Lysander got one look at the man"s face-before it vanished. The man had turned invisible!
"Duck down, crawl away," a voice beside him said. "Nepe"s waiting next intersection. I"ll distract them."
Lysander didn"t question it. He ducked down just as the first serf of the closing ring made contact. The man might have fell his touch, but immediately contacted the other invisible man and grabbed on to him. "I"ve got him! I"ve got him!" he yelled- before his breath whooshed out from what must have been a blow to the solar plexus.
Lysander slid around and between legs, and got clear as the melee proceeded. Who was the other man? He had never seen him before. Yet obviously the man had not only seen Lysander, he had recognized him-and known his mission with Nepe.
He hurried down to the next intersection, getting well clear of the action behind. He skirted a standing guidebot, but felt a thread extending from it. He paused, then touched it with a finger.
It was warm and alive. It was Nepe in disguise.
Now the machine moved, evidently called for duty somewhere else. Lysander followed. They entered the side hall and got out of sight of the pedestrians. Then they ducked into an empty food alcove.
Nepe was already flattening. Lysander heaved her up and draped her thinning body over his shoulders. He stood nervously while she spread out across his body, making it visible; the process was not instantaneous, and if someone came right now- No one came. Nepe completed the transformation. He did not need to look in any mirror; he saw the b.r.e.a.s.t.s and hips. He was a visible woman again.
Guided by her, he walked onto the concourse. There was Brown, looking about. They approached her. There was pressure at his lips. "I"m sorry," he said in Tsetse"s voice. "I didn"t know your game was through."
"It"s all right, Tsetse," Brown said. "We have pa.s.ses to leave. My golems will carry us back to the castle."
She showed the way to a public exit, where they stood and waited for half an hour. Then a horse appeared, running toward the city. It was a wooden horse-a golem-with a wooden carriage behind.
They boarded the carriage, and the horse set off for home. "Citizen Purple won his game," Brown said. "I was able to a.s.sist him, and I think he was pleased. I must say he has treated me better than I expected."
"I"m glad," Lysander said. He did not feel free to say anything else; Purple might have this carriage under observation, as a routine precaution.
They drew up to the Brown Demesnes. "I thank thee for thy company, Tsetse," Brown said, reverting to her Phaze self. "I will need thee not again this day; do as thou willst."
"Thank you, Brown," Lysander said carefully. She knew that her companion was not the real Tsetse, but did she know who it really was?
They entered the castle. Brown went to her room, probably to lie down; she had had a wearing session, he was sure. Nepe guided him to the golem storage room.
There she drew away from him, and formed her natural self, the naked girl. "We can talk now, Lysander," she said. "This castle is secure, when Purp"s not here. I just wanted you to get rehea.r.s.ed for your role, before. You did well."
"Thank you. But what happened to the Hectare seed? You didn"t lose it, after all that?"
She patted her abdomen. "No, I have it in here. I never thought I"d be pregnant at age nine!"
She was a Moebite, of course, able to a.s.sume any form; she could as readily carry an object inside her in human form as when she was in ball form or machine form. This allowed her to function normally while maintaining a suitable environment for the seed, so as not to let it die. Still, her remark surprised him. He had absorbed enough of human culture to know that human children did not procreate any more than immature Hectare did. "Glad I could be of help, getting you pregnant," he said dryly.
"You aren"t finished. We have to take the Hec seed to the West Pole."
"That"s where your center of operations is?"
"You don"t think I"ll tell you," she accused him mischievously. "But I will. The answer is, I don"t know where our setup is, and neither does anybody else. All I know is that I have to get a Hec seed to the West Pole, and then I"ll see what else I have to do."
"So if I want to find out, I"ll have to keep helping you."
"Right. We"re making you fulfill the prophecy, even if you don"t like it. But you"ll get a choice somewhere, I think, if you stay with it."
"You play a nervy game!"
"I"ve had experience. I can"t save the planet alone, so I"m recruiting whatever I need. You helped a lot, especially with the Hec code to null the alarm. Now we can relax, until Tsetse comes back. Then a long walk, so you better rest."
"Why not change to Flach and conjure us there?"
"Two reasons. First, he couldn"t carry the seed like this, so it has to be me. Second, Purp"s got magic warners out, to spy on any Adept-level magic in Phaze. So the small stuff, like invisibility, is about all that"ll pa.s.s. So I have to hoof it, and I can"t make it by myself in time, so I need you and Echo to help."
"Echo"s coming with us?" he asked, his human heart coming alive. The pressure and oddity of events had distracted him, but now he missed her intensely.
"You bet. We make it nice for you, so you"ll think about joining our side. Same way as Purp makes it nice for Brown. So he"s got her working for him, and I"ve got you working for me."
"But Brown is still helping you against the Hectare, and I"m still working for the Hectare."
"Yep. You can"t get full use out of an enemy. But you do what you can."
"Who was that man who took my place, so I could get away from the serfs? He turned invisible?"
"That was Bane. My father, aka the Robot Adept."
"Oh! He distracted them, then conjured himself clear!"
"No. After Flach conjured you and Echo out, Purp got wise and set up a magic barricade against conjuration and transformation in the dome. That"s why Flach couldn"t just conjure himself in to steal the Hec seed; I had to do it. He could"ve overridden Purp"s magic, but it would have made a splash, and alerted the Hecs. Tan"s got splash-watch, I think. He"s been having a lot of fun with Jod"e, but he watches the warners all the time. So we had to do it the hard way. Good thing it worked."
Jod"e-that still hurt, though now he had other love. "You mean your father let himself be captured-to help me escape?" Lysander asked, astonished. "Knowing that I"m an enemy agent?"
"He did that. Just as Green and Black gave themselves up to spring Flach. We need you, "Sander."
"You have more faith in your prophecy than I do!"
"We know magic better than you do. Now eat something, if you need it; there"s some food in a chest in the comer. And sleep; you can dream of Echo. One good night is all we have before it gets rough."
At this point, he believed it.