"Every Glamor has a constituency. Mine is Fungus. Havoc's is trees and plants. There are not many left. We must find one for you."
"Constituency," she agreed. "I am familiar with the concept. But I have no idea how I could ever be a Glamor, so the matter of the ikon or constituency seems academic."
"We shall have to get Idyll to help. But you will have to help too. It is a very personal thing."
"I should think so! But what about this vote you just set up? Are you really going to leave it to the populace?"
"They will vote rejection. That decision will help them prepare for the risk."
"You know the future, so are sure?"
"Affirmation. Now we travel." He put his hands on her arms. They were on Planet Counter Charm.
The human presentation of Idyll Ifrit was already forming. "Welcome, Warp, Shee."
Warp got right to the point. "Pa wants her to turn Glamor. I'm supposed to find her a constituency, but I'm baffled. She's a fine actress, but lacks empathy. The emotions she projects are not those she feels."
He was inaccurate there. When she projected love for Havoc, it was real. But she did not care about others.
"Problem," Idyll agreed. "Opinion, Shee?"
"Emphatic. I believe it is suicidally dangerous for you to even consider making me a Glamor, because I serve the machines who mean to destroy you. But assuming that there is some legitimate reason for this, I still doubt that it is possible. If it is possible, I don't see what empathy has to do with it."
"Everything," Idyll said. "It is the constituency that enables the Glamor state. The ikon provides the raw power, but the constituency is the essence. You must identify so closely with yours that you feel any injury it suffers. It supports you, and you defend it. You will not malign or abuse fungus in Warp's presence, or lichen in Gale's presence. Those constituencies will also come to their Glamors' aid in other ways, at need. It is a virtual symbiosis. It is empathy that makes the connection."
Shee shrugged. "Then any such effort is pointless. I have the qualities I was constructed with, and programmed with."
"Negation," Idyll said. "You started with those, but the machines knew you could not succeed in your mission unless you fulfilled yourself. That is why you spent years in a pseudo-human village, learning conventions instead of being programmed with them. You were programming yourself. Empathy is to a degree a learned quality of character."
"The capacity for it must exist before it can be learned," Shee said. "You may teach me near-future paths seeing by adapting my existing far-future paths seeing, but empathy is another matter. There is nothing to adapt."
"Observe." Idyll gestured to the forest beside the glade. It had become a different scene.
In that scene, a human village girl walked along a path. She hummed a tune as she went, and sometimes skipped, making her skirt flounce. She was intercepted by a brutish man: a brigand. She tried to retreat, but he caught her and heaved her up so that her bare legs dangled before him, kicking futilely. Then another brigand came, opening his trousers.
Suddenly Shee was there, striking viciously at the second brigand. He dissipated in smoke, as did the first one and the girl. It had been an illusion. The ifrit was unexcelled at that.
Shee retreated, returning to the glade. "I don't like rape."
"You identified with the girl," Idyll said.
"I did not feel her feeling. I just could not stand by and allow her to be despoiled."
"Why not? She was no one you knew."
"Havoc wouldn't like it."
"She's got a point," Warp said. "She attunes to Pa, and won't do anything that might cause him to be annoyed with her. Pa would never stand by and let brigands rape a girl."
"Point yielded," Idyll agreed. "No evidence of empathy. That will be attended to in due course.
What about her constituency? To what could she relate, without empathy?"
"To inanimate matter," Warp quipped.
They laughed. Then Warp and Idyll paused, exchanging a glance. "She is animate matter," Idyll said. "If there is one thing that lacks a champion, it is inanimate matter. What better champion than a sophisticated sentient sapient machine?"
Both looked at Shee. "Ludicrous," she snapped. "Matter doesn't care what happens to it."
"How do we know that?" Warp asked. Now Shee paused, unable to answer.
Chapter 11 Enclave
Havoc appeared in Monochrome's suite. "Havoc!" she exclaimed, delighted. "I thought you were with Shee, working up to the public presentation of the machines crisis."
"That's Warp, emulating me."
"I thought he was with Marionette on the challenge planet."
"That's Flame, emulating him."
She eyed him. "Confusion. Am I missing something?"
He laughed, enfolding her. "Nothing I can detect. You are still Earth's most beautiful woman."
"And all yours, anytime." She was already shrugging out of her clothing. "To what do I owe this surprise tryst? Have you come at last to inspect and approve the new bath girl candidates?"
"Question?"
"Ennui is too busy catching up the backlog from that spot vacation you made her take with Shee, so I agreed to see to the selection. But since you're the one who is choosy about the girls who touch you, I thought you had better make the final approval."
"Why new girls? The old ones are fine."
"They don't stay sixteen forever, Havoc. They turn seventeen, and then they have to move on to get married.
Having served the king in this manner is an excellent qualification, and most marry well. So there's a constant attrition, and more need to be recruited. We'll run out of them within months if we don't promptly replace them. So this is a necessary chore."
Havoc wasn't much for chores. "Another time. I have more pressing business now."
"Ever thus. Do not be despondent if one day there are no girls there and you have to wash yourself."
She was teasing him. "I would never get clean," he said, kissing her. "Agreement. Not where it counts. And what is this business?"
"I need an assistant on a dangerous mission."
"Gladly, Havoc!" She had efficiently stripped him as they talked, and worked him up to turgid readiness. When it came to sex, she was the absolute Mistress.
"Negation. I need an ikon carrier."
"Obscenity! There goes my opportunity." She rolled him over, taking him in. "Details?"
"Privacy."
"Granted." She milked him, causing him to spurt within her. He felt her answering climax.
"There is a mystery about Shee Robot. I need to fathom it before I take her the next step."
"Of what nature?"
"Sexual. She was nervous about the prospect of rape. I suspect she had reason."
"It is not the kind of experience a woman forgives or forgets," she agreed. "Even, I suspect, a mechanical woman, though it is difficult to imagine any man being physically capable of forcing such a creature."
"So I will travel secretly to her planet of origin to investigate. Maybe I can learn what I need."
"That would be a machine world. Havoc, if they caught you—"
"Did I mention danger?"
She sighed. "You must do what you must do, you impetuous barbarian. So you need a mortal girl to carry your ikon."
"It doesn't have to be a girl."
"Oh, it does, Havoc, with you. You can't last an hour without plumbing a woman."
"Exaggeration," he said, laughing. "I also need one who won't be missed here. The machines must not know what I'm up to until it's too late for them to stop it. Can you find a suitable prospect?"
"Affirmation. My personal assistant, Scent. A former bath girl."
"Question."
"You don't know her. I have kept her out of your sight so you wouldn't take her for your bed instead of me. She was assigned to me when I first came to planet Charm, and I kept her thereafter, along with two of my other assistants. That enables her to avoid marriage, for now."