She nodded. “I see we understand each other. I would convert thee to our cause—the cause o’ Phaze—for I be a creature o’ Phaze. But Flach tells me the prophecy would be invalidated then, so this may not be. I ask thee only this: e’en as I spare thee humiliation and loss o’ forced love, though I could do these without stopping the prophecy, so must thou consider carefully whe’er thy side be the correct one.”
“I am a Hectare agent. I must fulfill my mission.”
“Yet there may be ways and ways to see thy mission. Canst keep thy mind open to that extent?”
“I can try. But—“
“Then let us go from here; it be time.” She pulled her robe back up and crawled toward the entrance.
He crawled after her, his mind whirling. This creature—part bat, part wolf, part human, part Hectare—was indeed something special! Thirteen years in the making, but only a little over a month in his time. He had helped Nepe get the Hectare seed, never dreaming how it would be used! Now Weva combined the Hectare intellectual power with the human imagination and the Adept magic. She was surely the tool the Adepts intended to use against the Hectare investment. But how could she change anything? And how was Lysander needed to complete it?
Thirteen—and she had tempted him sexually, just to demonstrate her power, it seemed. She had convinced him; there was no way he could oppose her directly. He had demurred mainly on instinct, in effect capitulating and begging for mercy. Now in his mind’s eye he saw her slender body nested in the open robe, her nascent but well-formed breasts. It would have been easy to, as she put it, play with her, despite his relation with Echo.
Echo! Weva had deprived him of his love for Echo—and now there was a void. He was out of love!
Weva pushed up the lid. There was a roar, as the watching dragon spied the motion and charged.
“Begone, beast,” Weva said crossly.
The noise cut off. Weva drew herself out of the hole. Amazed, Lysander followed.
The dragon was lumbering away, having lost interest in them. Weva had changed its mind with a mere two words and no music! But if she could do that, why hadn’t she done it before?
Because she had wanted to make her little demonstration to him. The supposed need to hide from the dragon had been a pretext. Now that he knew exactly where he stood, she could get about her business of going where she was going.
What would she have done, if he had agreed to play with her? Probably she would have done it, being genuinely curious and perhaps without scruple. Though that was odd, because of her Hectare component.
“But it is still a long way to the South Pole!” he said. “We’ll need transport.”
“Aye. It be nigh.”
Coming toward them was a huge manlike figure. Its heavy tread shook the ground. It seemed to be made of tree trunks and cables.
“That’s a wooden golem!” Lysander protested. “The Brown Adept now serves the Hectare!”
“Aye. But she has spot control not. She sends them out on their missions, and knows not what they do till they return.”
“But they do her will! That thing will haul us right back to the Brown Demesnes! And you can’t interfere with Adept magic without signaling our location.”
“Aye. I dare not use my power. But illusion be lesser magic, making no splash, as be emotion control.”
As the monster golem came close, Weva signaled it by waving her arms. It bore down on them.
“What by thy name, golem?” she asked as it loomed close and halted.
“Franken,” it said, though it did not breathe.
“Well, Franken, what thou seekst be at the South Pole,” Weva said to it. “Carry us swiftly there.”
“Aye, Brown,” it said.
What?
The golem reached down with a giant wood hand and closed it gently around Weva. It lifted her up over its shoulder and set her in a storage box mounted on its back. Then it reached for Lysander and did the same for him.
They rode standing in the box, whose sides came a bit above waist level on Lysander. There were handholds. Evidently this was a standard setup for transporting human beings. Their heads could see over the wood bole that was the golem’s head. The thing was now striding south at a horrendous rate; it was almost like flying.
“But you neither look nor sound anything like Brown!” he whispered.
“To it I do, and that be what counts. Thou needst whisper not; it hears only when addressed.”
“But you’ve never even met Brown! You can’t—“
“Dost love me still, Lysander?” she asked.
Startled by the change in her voice, he looked at her. She was Echo! The sound and look were identical. Had he not known that there was no way it could be true, he would have been sure it was her.
“Point made,” he said. “And you probably don’t resemble Echo to the golem, just to me.”
“Aye.”
“You miss on only one thing: Echo is Protonite. She speaks as I do.”
“Oops!” she exclaimed, chagrined. Then: “Do you still love me, Lysander?” This time the emulation was perfect. Weva was a very quick study!
“No I don’t, as you know, Weva,” he said. “You took that from me. Are you going to give it back?”
“And play my game with you, to wile the time as we travel?” she inquired. She still resembled Echo exactly, her brown fluffy hair blown back by the breeze of their swift travel, her breasts shaking under the robe with the rocking of each big golem tread.
That made him pause. Maybe he should leave well enough alone, lest this provocative woman/child entertain herself at the cost of his future with Echo.
But that thought opened others. There would be no future at all, if his mission succeeded. The Magic Bomb would destroy the planet. So what was the point of being true to Echo? She would be better off if he were untrue to her—and to his mission. And he—he was objective now, no longer blinded by a potion-inspired love. Did he really want that love back? He could function better without it.
If he did not take back that love, he could do as he wished with Weva. She was young, but the way of this planet made physical age of little account; a robot was adult from the moment of its creation, unless otherwise programmed, and the creatures of Phaze let nature be their guide. If a female was mature enough to desire sex, she could indulge as she chose, requiring only an amenable male. That was probably seldom a problem. So Weva’s notion of playing with him was valid on her terms. She could do it in the semblance of Echo, or Jod’e, or Alyc, or in her own; she would have control of the situation regardless. If the planet was soon to be destroyed anyway, why not enjoy the time remaining?
Yet Echo had shared the love potion, and her love had not been nullified. She was a good creature; he could appreciate her qualities with clear vision now. He would never of his own choice have taken up with a woman who could turn harpy, and whose body even in her human state was fashioned of metal and plastic, but his experience had shown him better. He had been in love with a good woman, who had returned his love; it had been an excellent state. She had the mind of a harpy in the body of a robot; he had the mind of an alien creature in the body of an android. They were a good match, and he would be satisfied to let it stand.
“Give me back my love, but do not play games with me,” he said.
Weva’s natural likeness reappeared. “Thou canst gain from that only if thy mission fails,” she pointed out.
“And if it fails, I will be a criminal in the new order,” he agreed. “I have no future here, either way. But until then, I choose to live honorably.”
“I fathom that not!”
“You have a Hectare component. Surely you understand honor.”
“Nay, that were not in my syllabus.”
That was interesting. Apparently this Hectare protocol did not manifest full-blown. Perhaps it had to be evoked by contact with other Hectare as the individual developed. He did not remember how his own honor had developed; it seemed always to have been part of him. He was learning something about his own nature, by seeing the effect of an alien upbringing on her. “I’m not surprised. Your whole life must have been taken with learning to play the flute and becoming Adept and integrating your several components and preparing for whatever it is you will do to try to save your planet. There would have been no time for such subtleties as the concept of honor.”