“Eat your own eggs,” Flint said.
“I presume that is intended to be derogatory,” B:::1 said mildly. “We do not react to the remarks of Slaves—but if you are from another Sphere, you are a special case, not subject to our customs. Since you took the life of one of our number, the latter status would be advantageous for you.”
Flint did not answer.
“We have drugs,” the Master said. “They are effective in making any Slave tell all he knows. But if you are not a Slave it would be bad form to use them on you. We do not want trouble with our neighbors, and we do not seek a quarrel with Sphere Sol. We ask only to be left alone.”
Flint had expected to be tortured. This approach perplexed him. What was his proper course?
“Perhaps you have been influenced by the fact that the Slaves are humanoid, as we understand are the masters of Sphere Sol,” B:::1 continued reasonably. “But you have now observed that the Slaves are not civilized. Before we assumed control, their history was wastefully violent. They were breeding themselves into planetary famine, and rapidly exhausting their irreplaceable resources, such as fossil fuels. Pollution disease was taking hideous toll of their health. They did not precede us into space because they were too busy warring with each other while despoiling their environment with seemingly suicidal determination. We brought lasting peace and health to the Slave populace by providing the sensible control and moderation they lacked. Otherwise they might well be extinct by now, or reduced to truly barbaric levels. Your true affinity as a member of a Spherical sapient species is with us, the civilized, regardless of the accident of physical form.”
The problem was, it was true. The FreeSlaves were ignorant brutes, and not merely because of recent breeding. The Masters, in contrast, had treated Flint with a certain diffident courtesy despite his insults to them. They were—adult.
“Why did you not inform the Slaves of your mission at the outset?” B:::1 asked. “I refer to those of the plantation.”
“I tried. They wouldn’t listen.” Then Flint jumped. “You bastard! You tricked me into admitting it!”
“It is obvious that you are not a Slave. Your entire manner betrays it. Since we know that through an error Øro of N*kr was subjected to unconscionable punishment, the sensible explanation is that his mind was destroyed and his body taken over by an alien. We know such things are possible; it has happened in the past.”
“You’re pretty smart,” Flint said grudgingly. He decided not to mention Φiw of Vops, the Slave foreman. Why place a good man in jeopardy? “The Slaves simply would not believe me—any of them.”
“That is because they are ignorant,” B:::1 said, his mandibles making a little click of understanding. “To them, transfer is superstition, possession by demonic influence. But you could have reached us immediately.”
“I could?” Flint asked, surprised. He had abandoned any pretense; he did have to deal with these Masters. This was what he had been sent here for.
“Verify it with your body’s memory.”
Flint checked… and discovered what had been there all the time: any Slave could petition for an interview with any Master, anytime. Such a petition was invariably granted, and the circumstance of the complaint promptly and thoroughly investigated. Justice was rigorous—within the framework of the system. The Slaves did have rights, zealously protected by the Masters themselves.
He could have made his petition, even on the punishment rack, and had the complete and personal attention of a responsible Master within an hour. His mission would have been completed had he really wanted to accomplish it that way. But he had preferred to fight, and to seek the humanoid Slaves.
What did he want—the elevation of brutes like T%x? That would hardly save the galaxy! He had been a fool, allowing superficial appearances and subjective feelings to interfere with his mission. He would not make that mistake again!
“I am Flint of Outworld,” he said formally. “Sphere Sol, as you surmised. I have come to give you the secret of transfer.”
“We do not desire transfer,” B:::1 said without even a pause.
This set Flint back. “We are not demanding payment. We want you to have it. I’ll explain why.”
B:::1 made a little flutter of his wing-cloak, signifying comprehension and negation. “Transfer would disrupt our system. A Slave economy functions best when identity is irrevocably fixed in its original body. If it became possible for Masters and Slaves to exchange bodies, even briefly, it would evoke disastrous unrest.”
Flint pondered. He did not understand the intricacies of politics or economics, but was sure this Master did. “More than your system is at stake,” Flint said. “The entire galaxy is in peril.”
“That well may be. But the moment we begin to interfere with our neighbor Spheres, we become subject to interference from them. Since we do not desire this, we choose to minimize this possibility by keeping to ourselves.”
“Even if you are all destroyed—Masters and Slaves together?”
“We must exist according to our dictates—even at such a risk.”
Flint shook his head in an un-Slavelike gesture. He didn’t know what to say, not having anticipated such a response. Yet he should have foreseen this, for now he recognized the same pattern shown by the Master of the saucer, who had died rather than yield even a fraction of his self-determination. “Well, I certainly can’t force you. I’d better go home.”
“Excellent. We shall construct a transfer unit to send you back, then destroy it. I think your government will understand.”
Flint remembered the Council of Ministers of Imperial Earth. Yes, they were just the kind of fatheads to understand an attitude such as this!
Three Master technicians discussed the matter with him. They were intelligent, and quickly grasped the principles of what he was saying better than he himself did. He spouted incomprehensible formulas, the gift of his eidetic memory, and they shuddered with delight, admiring the sheer beauty of the logic. First he covered the Kirlian aura, and they modified their equipment to pick this up.
“As you can see,” Flint said, “most entities have auras of a certain standard intensity. Some have stronger fields… and here is mine.” He stepped into the sensing chamber. Their dial registered to one hundred, but the indicator jammed at the top. They were suitably impressed.
“Now you have to modify one of your matter transmitters to fix only on this aura—which is tricky, because it completely permeates the body,” Flint said. “Here are the formulas…”
But it was not so easy after all. The Masters used a different kind of transmitter—one that could ship larger amounts more economically, but was quite limited in range. Ten light-years was the maximum; five was the average. They traversed their Sphere by a series of hops from system to system, and had the routes so well organized that their Sphere suffered much less Fringe-regression than the human Sphere did. But the technology of their mattermitters was quite different from Sol’s.
Since transfer was a refinement of mattermission, Flint’s information was not applicable. A mattermission expert who understood the formulas of transfer adaptation could have adapted to the situation, but Flint was a Stone Age primitive with only rote information—set for the wrong equipment. It would take the Masters months or even years to iron out the wrinkles.
So Flint could not, after all, provide them with the secret of transfer. And he could not go home—not by mattermission.