“Thanks just oodles,” she said sarcastically.
Beman walked away, taking a side passage. Nepe pondered, then returned the body to Flach, who could change forms more readily than she could.
Flach, in his normal boy form, walked on to Eli’s cave. He would have the answer soon, or else!
But as he entered the elephant head’s cave, he came to a shocked stop. Within it stood not Eli, but a BEM—a complete Hectare!
How could the enemy be here, deep in the time-protected caves under the North Pole? Had the BEM they had gamed with betrayed them after all? No, that couldn’t be; Flach had come to know one and a half BEMs, in the guard and Lysander, and he believed in their sense of honor. Besides, this was something he had never seen before: a small BEM, only about two-thirds the apparent mass of the grown ones. A grown one would not have fit in the entrance hole.
How had a young BEM come here, when only adults had invested the planet? How could the animal heads have tolerated it? And how could it have happened recently, since Flach and his companions had been watching the entrance for a sign?
Then it came clear. “The Hec seed!” he exclaimed.
The monster slid a tentacle across a screenlike surface. Where it touched, a line appeared. It wrote an answer in script: YOU BROUGHT ME, FLACH.
“But why do we need a BEM?”
I DO NOT KNOW.
“They raised thee here from seed, somehow, though Hectare cannot grow away from their native planet?” But obviously it was so. “Thou dost be what I were supposed to—thou dost be the West Pole’s product?”
SO IT SEEMS.
“But the vamp girl, Weva, said I had to be inside for a day— which be four months here. That be not what—“
Flach broke off. Something so truly amazing was breaking across his mind that his mouth fell open.
Nepe filled it in for him, as flabbergasted as he. The werewolf, the vampire—WErewolf, VAmpire—WEVA. They are the same! And Beman must be BEM and ANdroid. They are all the same!
“Just as we are,” Flach agreed, awed. “Male, female, robot, animal—where we’re unicorn, they’re—“
I THINK NOW YOU KNOW ME, the Hectare wrote.
“Change with me,” Flach said. He became a wolf.
The Hectare became a wolf.
“But you’re a bitch!” Flach growled.
“Aye,” she growled, and assumed the girl form.
Flach became a bat. The other became a female bat. “An thou desirest a male, needs must I turn straight human,” she said in bat talk.
Flach became Nepe. The other became Beman.
“And one of your forms is a BEM!” Nepe breathed. “Who could have believed it!”
“It was done in the laboratory,” Beman said. “As I understand you were, before you merged with Flach. Can we be friends?”
“We’d better be!” Nepe exclaimed. “We don’t want to be enemies!”
“Especially since you must teach me magic,” Beman said.
Nepe turned over to Flach. “Magic!” he exclaimed.
Weva appeared. “Please?”
“That’s what the four months is for?”
“Aye, Flach. Eli says it needs must be, but only thou be Adept. He says I can learn, but there be none but thee to teach me.”
That was surely true! Anyone could learn magic, but most folk had only slight talent for it, while those who became Adept had great talent. It wasn’t safe for ordinary folk to try too much, because the Adepts quickly cut down anything that seemed like potential competition in their specialties. But a person with aptitude, tutored by an Adept, could learn relatively rapidly. Flach himself had been close to Adept level by age four, but that had been his secret, and Grandpa Stile’s. If she had the ability to learn, he could teach her a lot in four months.
“But thou dost be part BEM!” he protested.
“Aye, Flach. But three parts human, as be thou.”
Through her werewolf, vampire, and android components, he realized; each of those was one part human, one part other. His own human heritage stemmed from his unicorn dam and his two human grandparents. Because he had more human shares than any other, he regarded himself as human, despite his title of Unicorn Adept, but he could assume any of the aspects of his lineage. The same would be true for Weva. “Aye,” he agreed.
“I thank thee for thine understanding,” she said, and kissed him.
It was a supposedly innocuous gesture, but it electrified him. The revelation of her nature was still amazing him, on a lower level of his consciousness: she was an aspect of a creature like himself, with his own potential. But superficially she was a pretty girl, much like Sirel. It had been a year since Sirel had come to her maturity, and brought him to his, in their wolf forms, but the knowledge of the change in their status still thrilled and appalled him. He was ready to relate to a girl—to a woman on the adult level, but there had been none to relate to. Now, suddenly, there was, and she was much more than he had dreamed possible. Perhaps her kiss was innocent for her, but it was not for him.
“Aye,” he repeated.
He taught her magic. She was quick to learn. They found that what Weva could do, Beman could not, though he was her male aspect. Weva derived from cells taken from Sirel—which accounted for her similarity to Sirel, making her a person he could like, without having to give her up the moment it got serious— and Alien. These were creatures of Phaze, the magic realm, and magic was in them. But Beman derived from human, robot, and Hectare elements, which were scientific, and they related well to the things of science and not to the things of magic. The animal heads had evidently taken care to educate Beman in Proton speech, to clarify the distinction.
Nepe was curious about the way Beman could assume a full robot form instantly; her robot forms were all emulations, without her flesh actually becoming metal, but his seemed to be genuine metal. But he could assume only the humanoid robot form, while she could adopt any form she chose. The two compared notes, and discussed things of science, while Flach and Weva tuned out, bored. It seemed that Flach and Weva were the naturally sexed forms, while Nepe and Beman were emulations from neuter stock. The rule of no true male-female composite was being maintained.
But mostly it was Flach because of the need to cover the magic. Weva learned to conjure, and to fashion animate clouds, and to assume forms that were not in her ancestry. Thus she could become a machine that was not a humanoid robot, though her other self could not. She had to use a different spell each time, but she built up a collection of spells for such purpose, just as Flach had done in the past. Her new forms were not as realistic or functional as his, but in time they would become so. She was, after all, only twelve years old, and new to this.
Betweentimes, they talked, their dialogues becoming more intimate as their knowledge of each other progressed. “I be glad indeed that thou hast come on the scene,” Flach said. “But what I fathom not is why thou didst have to have a BEM component. The BEMs be our enemies.”
“I be part BEM,” she agreed. “But I be not thy enemy, Flach, and ne’er can be. I serve this planet and this culture, and if it be not freed, then will I perish with it and thee.”
“That I know. Yet what can a BEM do that we o’erwise could not? I think this be not part o’ the prophecy.”
“Nay, it be part o’ thy sire’s plan, and thy grandsire’s plan,” she said. “And that we shall fathom not till thou dost convey me to the South Pole.”
“Aye. Would I could show thee Proton on the way there, but I dare not. Needs must we go direct, when we go.”
They also played the flutes. She had been trained in music, as had the three of them, and had her own iridium flute. She was good with it, too—better, in fact, than he. “Well, I had more time, she said. “From age three on, did I train with it, though not by choice. But I think it be more than that.”