“There is something she knows,” Skot said reluctantly. “If you’re sure it’s safe for you…”
“We all do what is necessary,” Llume said with unusual grimness for her. As an even closer sister of aura, she was highly sensitive to the implications.
Melody’s course was clear. Yet she was uneasy. If the Tarot were guiding her to this, why hadn’t it offered a face of the Suit of Aura? This was surely a matter of transfer, covered by that suit. Instead the Tarot had shown her Energy, the Andromedan suit. She was about to chain another lady—and this one really was Andromedan. Why should the auspices be dubious?
More correctly, why should she think they were dubious? The card had to be exactly right for what the Tarot had to say. The focus was on Andromeda, not on aura; aura was merely the means to the information. Melody would have her answer, though she might not like it.
She set the machine for the process of overwhelming. Tiala did not move or protest. Why should this entity of Slash refuse to tell what she knew when it would immediately be extracted from her mind anyway, at far greater cost? She had only to give one answer via the Lot of *, and she would be released, with her galaxy no worse off than it would be via the aural overwhelming technique. For Tiala to balk now did not seem to make sense; she well knew Melody was not bluffing about her ability to get the information. Melody was the one entity in this galaxy capable of accomplishing this.
Melody realized that she had a Tarot-type riddle to deal with. Like the pun for dilettantes: What has five suits but exposes everything? The Cluster Tarot deck, of course. The symbols and meanings were present; she had only to interpret them properly. What pattern fit this seeming irrationality? What was there about this Lot of *?
It had to be that the unknown question related in some way to this Lot of *, so that the revelation would somehow nullify it. Was this another trap? Yet what type of trap could it be, that a lie would not have fostered better than this balk? Tiala obviously did not want to have her aura overwhelmed; her readings showed her terror of it. Why this suicidal course?
Then, from somewhere beneath full consciousness, Melody began to get a notion. She could not quite bring it to the surface, but it was appalling. In fact, it was a thing she very much preferred not to know.
Melody reset the machine and activated it. Tiala slumped.
“You sent her away?” Llume inquired, surprised.
“Yes. We have other business to attend to.”
“But she had not answered the question!” Skot said.
“She answered in her fashion.” Melody pondered momentarily. “Now I must transfer myself to Imperial Outworld to give warning.”
“What?” Yael said, astounded.
Melody looked at Skot. “You will have to run the ship. You and Llume.”
“I can’t run this ship!” Skot protested.
“Well, I certainly can’t!” Melody retorted. “I know nothing of the operations of either ship or fleet. And Llume…” Again she paused. She liked Llume a great deal, but… “Why don’t you transfer to Outworld, Skot? We girls can take care of the crew until help comes.”
Yael was screaming voicelessly. “You know Outworld is a death trap! You can’t send him there!”
“Yes, that might be better,” Skot agreed. “There is something about this I don’t understand, but—” The ship shook.
Llume put her ball to the deck. “That resembles a meteor impact!”
“Odds are against it,” Skot said. “Meteors strike the ship all the time, but it is extremely rare for one to be big enough to be felt like that. I think someone’s firing on us!”
“The hostages!” Melody said. “They have taken over another ship and attacked us! We have no officer in the control room to keep track.”
“We’d better check it out right now,” Skot said. “My report to Outworld would be no good if you got blown out of space.”
“Come on, Slammer,” Melody said. “We have business.”
Llume’s assessment had been close, and so had Skot’s. The command room’s view-globe showed the glowing hulk of a Polarian Disk ship. It had been blown up, and shrapnel fragments were spreading through space. One of them had struck the Ace of Swords, but caused only slight damage.
“The hostages must have tried to take over that ship, and been balked the hard way,” Melody said. “It could have happened here.”
The message-input was alive. Calls were on tap from several other ships of the fleet. “This is the flagship,” Skot said. “The nerve-center of the fleet. The other ship captains need directives.”
“But our captain is nonfunctional,” Llume pointed out.
“If this fleet loses its central organization, it will be a setup for hostage takeover,” Skot said. “If we don’t handle it, a hostage ship will.”
“In fact,” Llume said, “this ship was slated to handle it—as a hostage-command.”
“Yes,” Melody agreed, seeing it. Dash of Andromeda, the highest aura of the hostage force, operating in the name of Imperial Outworld, had in fact been forwarding the interests of Galaxy Andromeda. But for her freak of luck in converting the magnets, Dash would now be in control. “We have to conceal what happened—not only from the legitimate officers of the fleet, but from the hostages—until we have identified and nullified those four hundred Andromedans.”
“But if the legitimate officers don’t catch on to our state here, the hostages will,” Skot pointed out. “Either way, disaster.”
Melody walked around the room. She had discovered that muscular exertion facilitated the operation of the human brain, apparently by pumping more fresh blood-fluid into it. “I can’t bluff either group. I’m no space entity or military entity, just a visiting non-Solarian civilian. Skot…”
He shook his head. “I’m only 03. I was never privy to command decisions, and never a hostage. I’d flub it, both counts.”
Melody faced Llume. “But you’re 04, and you have associated with all the officers, and substituted for most of them at one time or another. You know their jobs about as well as they do. And you helped me run down the hostages; you know where they’re from, how they react. You could bluff other hostages—for a while; at least until we have a better idea of where we stand.”
Llume glanced at the Polarian hulk in the globe again. Her Polarian host-state had to affect her reaction. “Yes… I could… for a while.”
“Then you handle communications. Tell them Captain Boyd is occupied with pressing internal problems—the hostages will know why you can’t mention it on the fleet net—so you are handling coordinations. Keep the ships reassured; don’t let anyone panic. Meanwhile, Skot and I will try to get one of the real officers into operative condition. I know it is not good for the health of an ex-hostage, but this is an overriding emergency. With luck, in a couple of hours we’ll have Boyd or someone else able to put up at least the semblance of competency. We must keep up appearances.”
Llume glowed briefly, knowing that was a futile hope. The officers would hardly be ready that soon. But she had the grace not to say so. “I will try to coordinate,” she agreed. “The secret must be kept.”
“Come on, Slammer,” Melody said. “We have to revive your master.” And she led Skot of Kade away too.
But she didn’t go to the infirmary. She went back to the transfer unit and set it for her own aura.
“I don’t understand,” Skot said. “If you go to Outworld now, the fleet—I thought we had agreed that I—”