Melody realized that they had already been saved by the magnet’s confusion: Dash had been under attack by Skot, but had ordered Slammer to go after Melody. Slammer had thus split the difference between them, the compromise of imperatives, and so had hit neither and smashed instead into the wall. What awful power the thing possessed!
But the confusion would not last long. Had Dash been able to complete his order, naming the precise action, Slammer would have carried it through. Melody had been lucky—once. They had to flee. What that could gain she could not see, but so long as she were alive and free, there was a chance. Maybe she could hide in the crew section of the ship, smuggle out a warning to Etamin— no, that was no good—well, something…
Melody scrambled for the wall. Slammer jerked toward her, but Skot fired at the magnet, distracting it. A spot glowed white on the surface of the globe. Those lasers were only light, but what a lot of heat that thin beam packed! Then Dash groaned; he was not dead, but he was badly injured. Melody felt a kind of relief. Slammer moved over to his master.
Too bad the magnet had not been equipped to comprehend the truth! His real master had already been eliminated, supplanted by an inimical alien aura, possessed by a demon intellect. On the other hand, at least now Dash could not give Slammer a direct verbal order.
Melody put her fingers into the crack between the wall and door. She shook the door back and forth. Suddenly a catch gave way, and it swung open. She and Llume moved out.
There was no one in the hall. “Come on, Skot!” Melody cried.
“I have to cover your retreat!” he called back. “Move!”
Bold, suicidal, determined spacer! They moved. Melody feared that she would never see Skot of Kade again, but she had no choice.
9. God of Hosts
—so quadpoint tried to assume power!—
*he received no concurrence*
—I would have been satisfied if he had then it would have been off my wings—
*why did you miss the council meeting?*
— ast, I was in pain of aura I went to the shrine of our god aposiopesis and prayed for insight—
*do you refer to an ancients’ site?*
—do you call them that? aposiopesis means that ellipsis of communication that one is unable to present so it is with the ancients they have so much to inform us, yet they never quite convey it that entity who comprehends the content of aposiopesis shall be exalted—
*did you comprehend it?*
—I? you blaspheme! I comprehended nothing—
*then do you propose to yield power to quadpoint?*
—there may come a time when power shifts from sphere dash to sphere quadpoint, but that occasion is not yet—
*not as long as you control the major ancient sites, so that you are best able to worship aposiopesis*
—you are perceptive, ast!—
*yet we cannot withhold action hour much longer*
—no, not much longer but the dash command in segment etamin is about to secure for our use an aura capable of unlocking the key to aposiopesis then shall true victory be ours! surely that is worth a small delay of schedule—
Melody ran and Llume rolled down the hall. “Where do we go?” Melody gasped. This human host was good for short bursts of power, but tired rapidly under sustained output.
“Where they least suspect,” Llume answered. “Let me carry you; this host has greater velocity.”
Llume circled her tail about Melody’s waist and lifted. The tail was amazingly supple and strong. They rolled down the hall at a horrifying rate. But this was good: They would soon be farther from the scene of action than the hostages would suspect. It was also painfuclass="underline" Melody’s feet kept banging against the handholds set into the wall.
They were going toward the innership storage area, where the wooden barriers were. That would help—except that there was another magnet there. If all the magnets were put on the trail…
But Llume drew into a separate room on the near side of the barrier. She set Melody down. “This is where metal for the magnets is kept,” Llume explained. “They do not require it, except when injured or growing, so this area is safe. There is a chute to the main feeding area and from there are many channels to the outer ship. We can swim through—” She broke off as her ball lifted from the deck.
Melody heard it too: the keening of a magnet traveling at high speed. The labyrinth of narrow passages made it hard to tell how close it was, but it was coming nearer. The sound sent a chill into her.
“Slammer is looking for us,” Melody whispered. “How I wish I had gotten him tamed!”
“I will divert him,” Llume said. “You are the most important; there is no other aura like yours. Go to the crew section, seek a communications unit. Somewhere there must be loyalists who have not been caught, or they would not need this fleet to threaten the planet.”
“Yes,” Melody agreed. She could think of no better course.
“Swim well!” Llume whispered against Melody’s hand. Then she was off down the hall, her ball touching the wall above the handholds to make a noise to attract the attention of the pursuit.
“Swim well!” Melody echoed, tears in her human eyes. There was something especially touching about the words, suggestive as they were of Llume’s origin in the deep waters of her home planet of Sphere Spica. That powerful aura, such a perfect match for Melody’s own—why did this savagery have to be? They both knew the sacrifice Llume had made; her chances of survival were slender.
But if somehow they both survived, there would be a debt between them. When one entity saved the life of another…
Melody could not dawdle, however poignant her thoughts. To delay was to die. She went to the chute, then hesitated. This course was too simple, too obvious, and she had just thought of a better alternative. Across the wooden barrier, not far away, was the transfer unit. If she could get to it, she might transfer herself to an Outworld host without the hostages knowing, locate some powerful loyalist via a Tarot reading, and give warning directly.
But that could be a very dangerous alternative. In a room like this she could hide, at least for a while, and dodge. The magnet might be fast, but its mass prevented instant maneuvering, however it might appear at close range. Too many turns at speed, and it would tire; she had observed that in Beanball. All things, from civilizations down to amoebas, were subject to the limitations of energy. But in the halls, straightaways, she would be visible and vulnerable.
Unless there were a way to confuse the magnet. To make it look for her in the wrong place. Not by sacrificing more friends—apart from the fact she was out of friends, having permitted two to throw away their lives for her!—but by some mechanical means…
She looked at the cartons of metal. For the magnets, to build their bones. It had to be highly magnetizable stuff. The magnets perceived people by their auras; a low-aura person was little more than furniture. And they obviously could not discern aural families, for then Slammer would have known the significance of the change in the Captain. (And why hadn’t Melody herself realized what an actual strength of 175 meant, in a person listed at 150? The magnets were no stupider than she!) There must be a magnetic component to an aura, a trace overlap that the creatures could detect, that remained stable even when an alien aura of greater intensity took over.
Sometimes magnetism could be transferred by proximity, a little like sympathetic vibrations in music, or companion analogies in Tarot. This metal…
She tore into the nearest carton with her inadequate human hands. It was filled with slender metal rods. She drew one out. It was unprintable material, all right; she could feel the partial channelization of her aura in its vicinity. Ideal for her purpose!