“You must breed,” the man said. “But you may choose with whom to breed. We wanted to be first.”
“You can change form!” Nona said as if just realizing it. “You can imitate us!”
“We thought it would make it easier for you,” the woman said.
I have stalled as long as I can. Stave’s thought came. Either join me, or let me have her.
“It is better to maintain a united front,” Darius said. “We must protect him too.”
“We must unify our party,” Nona said, so that the rabble could understand. “We must be together, so that no one can fool us again. Where is Stave? Where is the horse?”
“We must find them,” Darius said.
They marched out, followed somewhat helplessly by the emulations. Apparently it was bad form to change appearance in the sight of others, so they were locked in.
They walked down the passage, peeking into chambers as if searching each for their lost companions. It would have been a hopeless quest, for there were many chambers, had they not been guided by Seqiro.
They found the horse still at the table, with Bel the yellow-maned mare. I have no objection to breeding, he thought.
“Hold off for a while,” Darius muttered. “We may need your full attention.” He put his hand on the horse’s back, as if giving a command, and Seqiro obliged by leaving the mare and following him.
They continued to explore chambers, trying to make it seem as if they were about to find the right one by chance. I have learned that the creatures here are not completely human, Seqiro thought. Neither are they animal. They may be reckoned as animal with human intelligence, and the ability to assume the forms they desire. By my definition they are the equivalent of the folk on the surface, and not inferior.
“Then why are they so eager to breed with us?” Darius asked.
They believe they are inferior, because they lack magic. They do not consider form-changing to be proper magic.
“This is foolishness!” Darius said. “They should be satisfied with what they are.”
To a horse, many human conventions seem similarly foolish.
Darius knew better than to argue, but Nona didn’t. “What conventions?” she asked, as if addressing Darius.
Confining your breeding to a single stallion or mare. You should breed with the nearest feasible creature of your species, when in season.
“That does seem to be what the rabble want,” she admitted. “So it seems that they are as much animal as human in attitude as well as body.”
Here is the chamber.
Nona entered it. “Why, Stave!” she exclaimed. “What are you doing?” As if there could be any confusion on that score.
Keli was chagrined, but not because she was naked. “He is breeding with me,” she said. Her words were now clear to them all, because Seqiro had penetrated her mind and was translating freely. “Can’t your business wait another minute until we are done?”
But Stave, abashed despite his knowledge that this interruption was incipient, was hastily straightening out his blue tunic. In any other circumstance he would have been mortified to have Nona discover him in such state with another woman. In this case he had begged her to do just that. Still, his embarrassment was striking all of them, mentally.
Darius did what he could to restore equilibrium. “We have learned that these folk are able to change form. One assumed the likeness of Nona, and another the likeness of me, so that we were almost fooled.” He indicated the two figures behind him, who still looked exactly like himself and Nona. “We decided that we need to remain together as a group, so that we can no longer be fooled this way. Otherwise we might be hopelessly divided, and never be able to leave this place.”
Stave looked at the emulated Darius and Nona. He was impressed. “You are right. I might never have found you, if you had not found me.”
“Then stay together,” Keli said. “But breed me now.”
“Much as I would like to, I must go with my friends,” Stave told her with real regret. His feelings were still coming through: he very much wanted a relationship with Nona, but knew that this was probably doomed for reasons not related to whatever feeling she had for him. Thus the offer of a beautiful creature like Keli, or of a creature in the exact likeness of Nona, had considerable appeal.
“But they too must breed,” Keli reminded him. “A thousand times, each one.”
“What?” Nona demanded. This was information they had had only via Seqiro, so it was necessary to establish this independent source of information.
“The rabble has this requirement for visitors from the surface,” Stave explained. “Each must breed with a thousand rabble, before being free. This is to enable more children to have magic that will allow them to return to the surface.”
The rabble are gathering.
“We had better get out of here,” Darius said tersely. Then, to Stave: “We do not accept any such requirement. They can not hold us to it.”
“We do not accept this,” Nona translated for Keli, with Seqiro making sure the woman understood.
They stepped out of the chamber, and paused.
The passage was now filled with people and creatures. It was apparent that their small group of four was not going to be able to go anywhere unless the rabble allowed it.
CHAPTER 11—SLICK
THE walk was reasonably routine, considering. They did encounter a dragon, but avoided it, and similarly avoided something that seemed to be a crossbreed between a scorpion and a tractor. They crossed a sea made of jelly solid enough to walk on—that was nervous business, because it might change to thin water at any boundary—and passed a region in which the ground seemed wooden and the trees were made of stone and earth. They did not pass any realities with telepathic animals; that would be in the vicinity of Seqiro’s anchor, perhaps on the opposite side of the Virtual Mode.
It was, however, a longer journey, requiring several days. Provos’ supplies were adequate; she might not remember details of the many realities they would cross, but she had known how long their excursion would be.
Colene discovered that she rather liked being with Provos, who had many sterling qualities despite being hard to talk with and of another generation. Colene wished that her own parents had had more such qualities. Scratch a suicidal girl, she thought wryly, and you found a fouled-up family. Provos seemed to have no evil habits. Had she ever married? It was hard to tell, but Colene suspected not, because her house was too clean and uncluttered.
What would Provos do on Earth? Colene hadn’t thought of that, but now it worried her. Colene herself had a home, such as it was, but she couldn’t take Provos there. In fact, maybe she couldn’t take herself there; she had been away for a month or so, and there might be awkward questions. But what were they going to do—throw her in prison? She could maybe hide Provos in Dogwood Bumshed, her hideaway. It wasn’t as if she were going to stay any length of time.
But Provos herself could help. All they had to do was give her time to get her memory straight, and she would know what pitfalls awaited them. That and common sense should get them through, Colene hoped. She really hadn’t been thinking of the possible complications of her home reality when she blithely said she could get the fractal information.
ON the fifth day of this leg of the journey the territory began to look familiar. They were coming to the Earth Colene knew. She experienced a certain bitter nostalgia. She had not loved her life on Earth, yet it had had its points. She had gone over some of them with Seqiro, in a fashion expiating emotional events, but there were others. Her feelings were mixed.