Cluster (37 page)

Flint followed her, relieved that contact was so easy right when he needed it. It had been similar in Sphere Polaris, but he had messed that up with his own unwarranted suspicions. Now he was in the final Death/Transformation stage of his Tarot reading—how apt that was!–and had no cause for anxiety. His clapper-feet made a tap dance of satisfaction-syncopation. His paraphernalia, at first so strange, was becoming normal. Music was the most natural thing, so why not make it naturally?

They emerged into the open walkway. Here there were many similar creatures, varying in colors, size, and tonal quality, and a few Mintakan animals. The sapients kept their music sedate, exuding noncommittal harmonies, but the animals made constant sounds of low-grade meaning, akin to the barking of Earth dogs. There were plants spaced decoratively that were shaped like musical instrument but these could not make music.

His nurse-guide brought him to a vehicle. It had a low sill so that it was convenient for their little feet, and high sides to support their upper frames comfortably. It extruded myriad fine wires beneath and brushed along its channel. It was somewhat like a boat and somewhat like a car and somewhat like a magic rug. Flint explored his host-knowledge and ascertained that the wires vibrated under the guidance of special frequencies. As they moved in their almost imperceptible patterns, the vehicle was impelled forward. It was a sophisticated yet basically simple mode of transportation that reflected both the level and the type of civilization here. This was another Sphere in advance of Sol—as it had to be, to maintain so huge a volume of influence.

Soon they left the city. The large structures of the central metropolis shaped to reduce untoward acoustical vibrations gave way to simpler residential dwellings. Their shapes were quite different, being oriented on acoustic principles, but they resembled in their fashion the individual family houses on Earth, or lean-tos on Outworld. The plants became larger: tree-lyres, thicket-drums, flute-vines. Though they were not musical singly, they became so in concert; they did not
make
music but they
became
music.

At length the brushcar entered a region of massed bubbles. The two of them stepped out and approached one, their feet evoking melodic echoes. Flint tried to break his pattern of walking experimentally, to disrupt the adumbration, the foreshadowing of his own sounds by prior echoes, and found he could not comfortably do so. Music was ingrained; to be unmusical was anathema, fundamentally uncomfortable.

The nurse played a special tune Flint could not quite hear, and the portal opened. They entered, and the door fastened firmly behind them.

It was a well-appointed private apartment. There was a basket of wormlike wires Flint recognized through his host-memory as a Mintakan food delicacy, a vapor spray for thirst, an assortment of powders for detuned anatomy, and a disposal tube for wastes.

“I expected to meet your officials,” Flint played with undertones of mild confusion. “What is this place?”

“A mating chamber,” she hummed sweetly. Now that he had to explore the concept, he realized that Mintakans, like Antareans, were sexless. He thought of his companion as female because she had the aspect of a nurse, and he regarded that as a female occupation. He had encountered several nurses in the course of his initial Earth training. They were generally pretty, and remarkably agile when eluding the male grasp.

“I did not come to this Sphere to mate,” he jangled, though he remembered the confusion caused by the Polarian mode of debt settlement. “However, if it is part of your necessary preliminaries to Spherical business–” How the hell did sexless creatures mate? His host-memory, typically, had that information hopelessly buried in suppressions.

“It is for the sake of complete privacy,” she explained. “No one will disturb us here for any reason. No sound will escape. Therefore we can proceed to our business.”

“But I have no business with you.” Then something connected in his melodic mind. “Unless–”

“Concurrence,” she played with an ironic trill.

He was in the presence of Andromeda, the Queen of Energy. She had been with him when the Ancient site collapsed; she had transferred with him. It was obvious, yet it hadn't occurred to him. He moved near enough to perceive the fringe of her Kirlian aura. Yes, it was true.

“You still possess dangerous information,” she played. “Therefore I must finish my task.”

“How did you get away from Spica?”

“When I was emotionally able to part with my offspring, I arranged to have another Andromedan female, of low aura, exchange with me. Her aura faded into the host-identity almost immediately, but the child was not aware of the change, so I was free. This was a complex procedure, details of which I need not go into. You succeeded is isolating me for some time, and I compliment you on your cleverness. You will note a certain musical justice in this present reversal.”

“Trapped in a mating chamber,” Flint played. “Yes, I appreciate the irony, and compliment you in turn on its neatness of concept and execution. Perhaps I can escape it as neatly.”

“Perhaps,” she played with a drumbeat of smugly challenging doubt.

She must be pretty sure her trap was tight, he realized. “You knew what we would find at the Ancient site,” Flint played with harmonics or accusation. This melodic mood-conveyance was extremely convenient.

“Of course. We excavated an Ancient site in Andromeda three centuries ago, though it was not as good as yours.”

“The Ancients colonized Galaxy Andromeda too?” Flint was amazed at this confirmation. He had supposed, comfortably, that the Ancients had been a local phenomenon. Local within a few thousand light years of Sol, at any rate.

“They colonized the entire galactic cluster. Everywhere we go, they have been there first. They were a remarkable civilization.”

“You've been to other galaxies? Flint realized she was only playing freely because she expected to kill him here, but this was most interesting information.

“Via transfer, of course. Looking for new sources of energy. But there are none, only the strong atomic interaction of matter, whose exploitation destroys that matter. So we had to concentrate on taking what was most convenient, with the greatest margin of safety.”

“And destroy our galaxy?” Flint sang with a triple harmony and discordance of outrage.

“It was a hard decision, but it had to be made. There have always had to be sacrifices for higher civilization. Would it be better to have two fragmented, semicivilized galaxies—or one fully civilized one? We judged that, considered in terms of the universe, consolidation warranted the sacrifice. Our coalition of Spheres could not embrace all of Andromeda unless we had virtually unlimited energy to abate the Spherical regression effect. With that energy we could achieve unity rivaling that of the Ancients. Higher civilization was at stake. You would have done the same, in our circumstance.”

“I would
not
have done the same!” Flint played back strongly.

“Yet you called down explosive bombing on your own head and destroyed the most valuable reservoir of science in your galaxy.”

“That was to
protect
my galaxy!”

“What I do is to protect
civilization
,” she played softly.

She had a note, he had to admit. Solarians had practiced destruction and genocide to further their interests—in the name of civilization!–as long as they had had the ability. He remembered how his tribe had killed the dinosaur Old Snort, taking the magnificent creature's life merely to provide bodily energy in the form of food. How did that differ, except in scale, from what Andromeda was doing? No, his kind was not morally superior, and there was something to be said for spreading civilization. There were many species and many Spheres, but there had been only one achievement like that of the Ancients. To realize that potential again—maybe it was worth the price of a galaxy.

He wavered, then played firmly: “Yet I am
of
my galaxy. I cannot sacrifice its interest. The Milky Way did not set out to destroy Andromeda; we only defend ourselves.”

“An accident of situation,” she responded with a hint of dissonance. “Had you come across that site five hundred years ago, you would have learned how to transfer energy, and inevitably raided
us.
You have no moral claim, only the innocence of the lack of opportunity.”

“Agreed.” Flint clapped over and tried the door, but it was firm against his push and he lacked the musical key to solve the lock. These devices were sophisticated, his host-memory told him; he could try melodic variations for the rest of his life without coming close. The phone—actually quite similar to the Earth instrument of the same purpose—was similarly keyed. He could not communicate with the outside unless Andromeda allowed him, and of course she would not.

“You
agree
?” she played after a pause.

“Yes. I personally feel civilization is not worth the price of macro-genocide. But I'm only a Stone Age man. My species obviously feels otherwise. Self-interest is our guiding force. Polaris may be morally superior, but not Sol. I don't like the truth, but I acknowledge it.”

She was silent. She had led him into this trap so that she could kill him conveniently and without fuss. But she was not in her Amazon Andromedan body now. She had no cutting disks, no burning lasers. She was in a true Mintakan host, as he was, and though these bodies were of uniform gender, his masculine nature had oriented on a large, strong host, while her feminine nature had taken a petite one. She had appearance; he had power. Thus he had a physical advantage.

And if the Mintakans suspected what was happening, they would come immediately and use the overriding master-tune to open the door. They should catch on, for the two host bodies were gone. All he had to do was stall Andromeda long enough.

“You must have been here before,” he played with a counterpoint of annoyed admiration. “You are familiar with Mintakan nature and custom, and had this chamber all set up.”

“I oriented on the Mirzam transfer to Mintaka,” she agreed. “I was late, because of your fiendish ploy at Spica.”

Flint burst into a fibrillation of mirth. “So now your true sentiments come out! You don't want to return to Spica.”

Her chords were intensely hostile. “I am glad I have the opportunity to destroy you tediously.”

“So you were late, and Mintaka was already into transfer technology,” he played liltingly. “So when this Ancient site discovery came up you intercepted Mirzam's next envoy and impersonated Mintaka on Godawful IV. But because your Spican bondage had depleted your aura, you couldn't transfer to a local body. That would have given you away anyway. Your galaxy had to undertake the hideous expense of intergalactic mattermission.”

“We shall recover that energy from the essence of your galaxy,” she twanged.

“And then you lost your body, and must die along with me.”

“But my mission is accomplished,” she played. “You shall not relay the secret of energy-Kirlian, so shall not achieve parity with us.”

“But I did relay the secret of transfer orientation to the Canopian,” he played. “So now our Spheres will be able to trace your transfers, even as you traced ours, and send counter-agents to weed out all your spies. We'll locate and destroy your energy-relay stations too. But first we'll study them, and get the secret of energy transfer anyway. We may not be able to do to Andromeda what you have tried to do to us, but we can now protect our galaxy from yours.”

“Your schlish myriad-image ploy,” she complained. “Had I been able to kill you in time–”

“And without that ill-gotten energy, your civilization will have to regress at the Fringe, just as our Spheres do,” he continued. “You will be pleasantly primitive at the rim, and no threat to your neighbors.”

“We shall develop other sources of supply.”

“Not if we run tracers on your intergalactic transfers and warn alien Spheres of your intent.”

She emitted a sudden blast of discordance. It was a painful experience, and he damped violently and automatically. These creatures could kill with mere sound! He lost his balance as he fought off the terrible noise, and one drum-deck brushed hers.

There was the electric tingle of one intense aura impinging on another. As always, it affected him profoundly, and more so this time, because the shock of discordance had made him vulnerable. Suddenly he didn't want to fight her any more. But he knew he had to, for the information he had could make his galaxy paramount. Not just Kirlian energy, but something the Andromedans lacked: involuntary hosting, whereby a high-Kirlian entity could be projected to a fully functioning entity and take over that entity. It was right there in his memorized formulas. If only he could get it to his galaxy.

“So you have sentient feelings,” he played as his strings relaxed. “You're not the complete huntress after all.”

“Huntress?” she played, her anger muted but still audible in the background melody.

“Too bad you didn't visit Sphere Sol,” he played, and now his tune was of affected pity. But was it pity for her, or for himself? His Kirlian missions had cost him his fiancée and his Paleolithic innocence, and these seemed unbearably precious in retrospect. “We have a rich mythology based on the visible stars. If you will desist from trying to kill me for a while, I'll tell you about it.”

“I haven't been trying to kill you. I brought no weapon. We both will die anyway. I merely render you incommunicado until your aura fades.”

So that was it. If he killed her, he would still be trapped here. He would win release only if he could make her release him, and that was extremely unlikely. She was a hardened professional intergalactic agent, inured to the concept of genocide, a ruthless killer, the Queen of Energy.

Unless he could prevail upon her suppressed femininity, and make her
want
to release him. Maybe that was what she wanted, in whatever subconscious her kind possessed. Maybe their interactions in the Spheres of Canopus and Spica and the open cluster of the Hyades had developed an affinity. It had been fun mating with her as Impact-Undulant, and they did have matching Kirlian auras.