The music intensified. Lysander felt it orienting on him, entering him, drawing him out of himself. It was as if he were floating up and looking down at his body and the bodies of the others. But he wasn"t dying, he was relaxing; it was pleasant. He would be satisfied to float forever on this magical music!
But if they had intended to make him talk about his true mission, they had failed. He felt no compulsion at all to talk about anything, merely to float and reflect. So he could relax, until the Hectare came. Then-he would see.
The music ended. Lysander thought it had been only a minute or two, but the sun seemed to have jumped forward in the sky beyond the picture window. It had been at least an hour. That music was potent!
The others were silent as Clef put away his flute. They seemed to be recovering from the effect of it, just as he was.
"Did I pa.s.s inspection?" he inquired, trying to be light.
Clef turned to him. "I suspect you are the one we want. It is fortunate that Citizen Blue hired you."
"For work on circuit feedback?"
"There is a prophecy that a great trial will come to our culture, that can be ameliorated only by a particular person, a newcomer to the planet. We have been watching for promising arrivals. The music suggests that you qualify. I hope it is correct."
"A prophecy?" Lysander asked, surprised again. "A magical prediction?"
"You might call it that. Actually, prophecies are more difficult to a.s.similate, as they are often vague about details, and considerable interpretation is needed. But they are always correct in the end. If you are the one, you will be invaluable to us."
Lysander spread his hands. "Somehow that seems like more than I should be credited with. I "m really not a planet-saving type."
"Perhaps." Clef shrugged as if unconcerned. "It was pleasant to play again, at any rate."
"It was fun to listen!" Flach said. Then Nepe appeared. "But I guess we better go on back to Grandpa Blue." She extended her hand to Lysander.
He took it, relieved that he had gotten through their test. Evidently the magic had oriented on his special mission, but not clarified its nature. Save the culture? Not by their definition! He was on the other side.
He blinked. They were back in Citizen Blue"s apartment, all naked except for the Citizen, and Alyc was there, gazing at him expectantly. "Yes, I now believe in magic," he said, forestalling her. "This little lady showed me quite a world!"
3 - Decision
After polite dialogue of the adult kind, Citizen Blue packed Lysander off with Alyc for the familiarization tour of Proton. But he held Nepe with the tiniest indication of a finger. She faded back, but did not depart. She had known it would be thus.
When things were clear, the Citizen held a brief meeting with Sheen, Agnes the maid, and Nepe. "Verdict?" he asked Nepe.
"Clef piped out his soul, and says he may be the one."
Blue nodded. "I thought that might be the case. His arrival was too pat. How much is Clef sure of?"
Nepe shrugged. "He didn"t say, because "Sander was there. Just that there"s a prophecy, and he might qualify as the special person we want to help us get through the bad time."
Agnes snorted. "Special person! The man"s an enemy agent!"
"If he is the one," the Citizen said. "And if he is the one, we desperately need him. I don"t think Clef would have mentioned the prophecy if he wasn"t fairly sure."
"He may be sure the man is an enemy," Sheen said, "but not that he is the one we need."
Blue nodded. "It would be premature to take action at this time. But at least we can use this as a focus for our investigation. I shall arrange to keep him occupied with the Game Computer."
Sheen pursed her lips in exactly the fashion of a living woman. "But if he is versed in computer circuitry-"
"Have no fear, my love; he will not have access to the circuitry. The Oracle will divert him cleverly enough. Meanwhile, we shall be taking his measure, and discover perhaps in exactly what way he may be useful to our effort."
Sheen nodded, satisfied. If the Oracle was working on this, there would be no errors.
Blue glanced at Nepe. "You and Nessie know what to do."
Nepe nodded. So did Agnes.
"We shall cover for you as required," Blue concluded. "Otherwise, you"re on your own. Project Phaze Doubt depends on you."
She laughed, though she knew it wasn"t funny. "Phased out by a little girl!"
He smiled. "Don"t get cute, amoeba face. We love you, and want you to succeed."
How true that was! She would keep her doubt to herself, and do her utmost to complete her mission. She could not afford to dwell on its immense responsibility; she would tackle one step at a time.
Nepe went up and embraced her grandfather, then her grandmother. "Nessie will update me," she said, wiping away a tear.
"And so will we, while we can," the Citizen said. "Until Alyc turns us in."
Another laugh bubbled up in Nepe, despite the gravity of the situation. "Maybe she"ll turn him in too!"
"Maybe," Blue said, smiling.
Then Nepe took Agnes" hand. "Follow my lead, Grandam."
The woman nodded. Nepe changed to Flach and conjured the two of them to a vacant chamber across the city. There she reverted to Nepe-form, and melted into a pool of protoplasm. Agnes, who was Nepe"s mother"s elder portion, melted with her. Soon the two Moebites were flowing across the floor, and into a disused drain channel.
I don"t think anyone"s watching. Nepe thought, her direct contact with a creature of her species making communication possible, though they were not telepathic. It was simply a matter of tangential nerve signals. But we don"t know how many other spies there are, or when the invasion"s coming, so we have to be careful.
Agreed.
This leads outside, near a horse range. Flach"ll be a horsefly, till we get to Clef.
Just don"t bite me!
Nepe sent a peal of laughter that jarred loose the contact.
They flowed out of the pipe and settled on the ground. It had been seeded after the mergence, but the gra.s.s had not yet filled in completely near the dome.
Nepe shaped herself back into girl form, hiding against the wall, then became Flach, who would have had trouble dealing with puddle form. The mutability of the Moeba complemented that of the Adept, each able to change in ways the other could not. They found it best to a.s.sume human form at the exchange platform, to avoid miscues.
Flach became the horsefly. He buzzed up, looking around with his multifaceted eyes. There were horses grazing not far off, attended only by a mobile watering station.
He buzzed down to Agnes. He touched her briefly and sheered off.
She was more facile than he in the change, having had more experience. She went directly from pooled protoplasm to unicorn, standing in the shadow, where her black hide helped her fade out. She had white socks on her hind legs, and a spiraled horn. She was Neysa, the Adept Stile"s longtime companion, and perhaps the one who knew Flach best.
Flach flew down to light on her head, between her ears. She walked beside the wall until the site of their emergence from it was not clear, then turned outward. She put her head down to take a bite of gra.s.s, so that the watering robot would see the outline of a grazing horse. After a moment she moved on, keeping her horn angled away from the machine.
In this manner she worked her way to the fringe of the seeded turf. Then she stepped out onto the natural ground of Phaze, and quickly lost herself in the higher bushes growing there. Once she was fully clear of the dome of Hardom, she worked into a trot, moving at moderate speed westward, then southwest, toward the great Purple Mountain Range. If anyone saw her now, she was just one more unicorn traveling her own course, like so many who ranged out from the Herd to find choice foraging.
As afternoon closed they came to the mountains. Flach remained in fly form, taking no chances. Even if it wasn"t necessary right now, it was good policy for the future.
As they neared the residence of Clef and Tania, Flach buzzed off Neysa"s head, and she a.s.sumed her third form: a firefly. As horsefly and firefly, they buzzed up to the cottage. They flew to the picture window, and Flach banged against it several times, making a noise.
In a moment Tania spied him. She nodded, and opened a smaller window. The two flew in, lighted on the floor, and a.s.sumed their human forms.
"We were expecting you," Clef said, joining them.
"I be glad to see thee here, our past differences done," Tania said separately to Neysa.
"Thou didst shame me to forgiving my filly," Neysa responded to her.
"Because I loved Bane-and Fleta," Tania said. "Before Clef came, and fulfilled my life."
"It was mutual," Clef said. "Now I suspect you want my full report on the visitor."
"Grandpa Blue has put us on alert," Nepe said, taking over from Flach. She was better at talking, and at Proton matters. "But he needs to know more before he acts."
"I am as yet not adept, as it were, at reading souls," Clef said. "But there is no doubt in my mind that Lysander is a hostile agent. He appears to mean no personal ill to us, but his loyalty is to a foreign power. When that power strikes, he will support it."
"Yes, Grandpa Blue is investigating his origin. He"ll find out who "Sander works for. But since the prophecy says that only the right one can save us, that won"t be enough. We have to know if he"s the one."
"Exactly," Clef said. "The difficulty is that Lysander doesn"t know the answer himself. That is why I mentioned the prophecy. I hoped to elicit some reaction that would clarify the matter. But there seemed to be only perplexity."
"Exactly what is the prophecy, and what does it say?" Tania inquired. "I had not heard of it before."
"Trool came across it in the Book of Magic," Clef said. "He had seen it before, but it wasn"t relevant to the immediacies of prior situations, and there is so much in that book that he ignored it. But when we merged the frames, he remembered, and spoke of it to a few of us. We did not bruit it further about, not wishing to alarm others. But suddenly its relevance is manifest. The wording is simple, just two sentences: "When frames merge, comes a time of great trial. Only one alien to the culture and opposed can save it-an he choose." We interpret that to mean that an enemy will attack, and that a member of the enemy force can help us prevail, if we can convince him to do it."
"It could be a female," Tania pointed out.
Clef shrugged. "Yes, of course. But from offplanet, and not conversant with our ways. So we are considering Lysander, who represents an alien force. I think we dare not a.s.sume he is not the one. If other prospects appear, we must consider them too."
"Like Alyc," Nepe said.
"Yes," he said. "And any other foreign agent. If we were to eliminate any one of them, we might doom ourselves. But Alyc is human, and has adapted well to the culture, so we doubt it is her. Lysander, in contrast is an extremely sophisticated android. I would like very much to know what kind of brain he has. When I piped out his soul, the part that a.s.sociated with the body was ordinary, but the pan that was the brain, and therefore the mind, was as strange as I have seen. Certainly it is alien! So Lysander seems to be a far more likely candidate."
"If he choose," Tania said. "I might make him choose."
"You could compel him to do our bidding, dear," Clef said. "But that might destroy his usefulness. I suspect we will need his full understanding and cooperation, which would be another matter. Also, if his mind is truly alien, you might have difficulty exerting your magic on him."
She nodded, appreciating the point. "Then perhaps it is better to give him reason to support our culture. Suppose he fell in love with one of our women?"
"That has been known to achieve remarkable things in the past," Clef said with a bit of a smile.
"When my father Mach loved the unicorn filly Fleta," Flach said, "all Phaze and Proton changed."
"And when I loved Bane, I changed too," Tania said. "I know the power of love, even that which be not returned! But can an alien thing love similarly?"
"Lysander is schooled to emulate human ways," Clef said. "His reactions here were normal. Unless his core personality is unable to love, I think he should be normal in that respect also."
"Then methinks we needs must find him a woman," she said.
"He has a woman: Alyc," Nepe said.
Neysa snorted.
Tania turned her great eyes on Nepe. "Thou knowest we must link him to one o" our own."
"I guess so," Nepe agreed. "Maybe the enemy"s using Alyc to keep him in line."
"I would tend to doubt that," Clef said. "The most effective spies I should think would be those who do not know the ident.i.ties of the others. That way, if one is discovered, he can not give away the presence of the others. I think the presence of two in Citizen Blue"s household must be coincidence-or, if not, their true natures must still be concealed from each other. So they would be unlikely to discuss the details of their conspiracy. However, if they did, Blue would soon know of it."
"But while they are together, we can"t put one of our own with him," Tania said.
"Alyc has a short attention span with men," Nepe said. "Her romances seldom last longer than two or three weeks."
"Even that might be too long," Clef said. "We need time to work on him."
"Choose a woman, and introduce her to him," Tania said. "Then she"ll be there when he breaks from Alyc. She may even take him from Alyc."
"Thou tookst Bane not from Agape," Flach said, a trifle smugly. He knew that Tania had had four years to try, and hadn"t made a dent. Instead she had lost her own heart to Bane, until Clef won her with his magic music.
"Thy sires were one h.e.l.l of a lot better men than Lysander," Tania said. "Lysander I could take, an I wished."
"You may have to, if our ploy fails," Clef murmured. "That"s why I prevented you from using your power on him at this time. It may be needed more critically later."
Tania made a face. "I will do what I needs must do, but I loathe the prospect. Thou be not the first I loved, but thou surely be the last."
"So what woman?" Nepe asked. "A nice wolf b.i.t.c.h? Some of them are s.e.xier than human women. Ask Flach."
Flach took over, embarra.s.sed. "She be always teasing me about that. I want just to mate with my Promised, Sirelmoba, an we come of age. But Nepe be right: meseen what a b.i.t.c.h can do with a grown man, an she chose."
"But an she be a dog in Proton, that be no good," Tania pointed out.
"Brown is close to the wolves," Clef said. "She should know which ones have suitable a.n.a.logues."
"I know," Flach said, annoyed. "I be closer than any!"
"Of course thou dost be," Tania said. "Clef be gone from Phaze then. Who dost thou recommend?"