Chaining the Lady (38 page)

“Leave them that way. If one of us reaches a ship with a transfer unit, we might transfer back into one of those bodies.”

Slammer had finished. Several hums came in on the net, providing the identities of possible salvageable ships. Melody checked their positions in the globe. “I think we're in business,” she said with satisfaction.

“We have very little time,” Llume said. “The Andromedans are drawing near.”

“We may have to distract them with the first couple of ghosts, then skip ahead to set up more,” Melody said. She, Llume, Slammer, and Beanball went to the transfer unit in the hold. Again Melody had to help Slammer across the barrier, but now that the magnet had no weight, it was easy. “Yael will see that you get across next time,” she said to him. “Maybe we can find a way to break it down so you have free access. You may be best off staying with the transfer unit anyway.”

She showed the magnets how to nudge the transfer control, once she had set it. Little Beanball was just the right size to hit the switch without touching anything else. While they were rehearsing it, another magnet showed up. “Slimmer!” Melody said. “You couldn't get across the barrier to join the others! It must have been a terrible experience for you.” But at least the little magnet family had been reunited.

Melody oriented on the unit on a Solarian derelict in the path of the oncoming ships, and set it on Llume's aura. Llume entered, and Beanball nudged the switch. Then Melody helped the Polarian host out. She was not a zombie. True to her philosophy, Llume had not damaged her low-aura host. “You and Yael and the magnets have a nice chat while Llume and I are gone,” Melody suggested.

She reset the unit, orienting on the available Mintakan ship, and entered it herself. “Okay, Beanball,” she said. And privately to her host: “Take care of yourself, child.”

“I love you, Melody,” Yael replied. “Come back.”

Then Melody was in darkness. She hovered near a metal wall, waiting.

“Hello,” Melody said to her magnet host. “I am Melody of Mintaka, here to show you what to do. Go to the ship control room.”

The host obeyed immediately. This was a fine body, with a lovely internal heat from burning coal dust and extreme responsiveness in the vicinity of anchored metal. Melody surveyed the situation, getting her bearings. This was a Mintakan ship, but it was every bit as alien to her as the other ships were. She knew the controls would be sonically organized, but in this host it hardly mattered. The question was, could this ship be made to fight?

It was an Atom type, in the same class as the Knyfh ships, with a solid nucleus and a magnetically fixed satellite shell. It had been taken hostage, but now the hostages were dead, for a missile had holed it suddenly. It was without air, but it was otherwise serviceable. In fact, since it was loss of personnel rather than destruction of equipment that had derelicted it, this was an excellent prospect for reclamation.

Did it have the missing transfer unit aboard? No. That was a disappointment, but Melody could not complain. Her success so far was fortune enough.

She floated past a dead Mintakan, a confused jumble of pipes and wires and castanets, drifting in the hall. Its drum-membranes had burst, its tubes ruptured. Mintakans did not breathe in the sense that Solarians did, but they needed air for their various sonic devices, and decompression was a thorough and awful demise. The sight would have horrified her in her natural body, but sight was not possible in this host; she had instead a magnetic awareness that removed much of her emotional involvement.

The magnets of this ship, the
Six of Atoms
, assembled in the control room, humming with gladness for her presence. Now that she was one of them, she understood that they possessed the complete range of sapient feelings. Much of their emotion was expressed in magnetic fluxes and was therefore not perceived by other creatures, but they were certainly a full-fledged galactic species, deserving of recognition as such.

There were only five of them, all that had been assigned, since the Solarians had been, even in this crisis, jealous of their command over their metallic servants.

Melody flexed her communicatory magnetic fields. Her host was not as intelligent as the sapient norm, but was smart enough for this.

“The enemy ships are passing this ship,” she hummed, and realized that the sonic manifestation was merely a side effect of the intense fields of communication, used for special occasions only. No wonder the magnets had not seemed talkative! “We shall have to attack them. Your valuable participation shall be rewarded if we are victorious.” She did not go into the matter of hostaging, afraid that would confuse the issue, and did not mention that even if they managed to win this battle and save Segment Etamin, the remainder of the galaxy was already lost. One thing at a time!

The viewscreen was sonic, so she was able to perceive its messages. The enemy ships were almost abreast of the Solarian derelict; had Llume made it there? Would she now actually fight against her own galaxy?

The magnets had better comprehension of the mechanisms of the ship than Melody had hoped. It
was
functional, and they
could
make it work. Quickly Melody organized them, positioning magnets at the key stations, making sure they knew how to respond when she gave the orders. They were natural followers, friendly, willing assistants, wholly likable.

Suddenly the Solarian derelict fired at the enemy, at virtually point-blank range. The Andromedan fleet had ignored the hulks, concentrating on the
Ace of Swords
, and passed within a thousand miles of the dead Sword. The result was impressive. A Scepter exploded, its missiles detonated by the heat-beam. A Cup sprang a leak.

Quickly the thirteen remaining ships reacted. Admiral Hammer could be caught by surprise, but he was no fool. A missile slammed into the derelict Sword, gouging a great hole in it.

Yet, amazingly, the Sword fired again, scoring on a Disk. The magnets were tough; mere shock or vacuum did not destroy them, and Llume could not be killed easily while in a magnet-host. It was a phenomenal breakthrough in military space tactics: magnet-hosts as ship captains! But then a Cup cloud enveloped the derelict, fogging its laser lens, and it was through.

However, the enemy fleet, taking evasive action, had now come within range of Melody's ship. They did not yet realize that this was an actual reoccupation of derelicts. Her atom-magnetism reached out and caught two of them, a Sword and a Disk. It did not shake them physically, as the Knyfh weapons did, but induced a powerful vibration in the affected substance that made it ring, literally. Sonic vibration could shake a ship apart.

Meanwhile the eight ships of Mnuhl's command were approaching. The Andromedans, uncertain where the enemy was, were now firing at other derelicts, wasting energy and missiles. They could not have much offensive punch left at this stage. The tide of battle was turning at last!

Then a missile struck Melody's atom. The concussion was cataclysmic, even to her magnet-form. The outer shell let go, as its power was interrupted, and the nucleus split like the atom it was.

Melody was hurled into space. The magnet-body was not damaged by this; there was no more difficulty stoking coal dust in the vacuum of space than in the vacuum of the ship, though of course this could not be maintained indefinitely. Her air-vents were self-sealing, and there was an internal gas reserve. When the available combustibles were exhausted, life would fade. In the immediate situation, however, the need was not for air or heat, but for metal: large, anchored metal, for the magnetic field to grab on to. Her host was helpless. There was no hope of retransfer now.

But at least she had arranged to eliminate five more enemy ships. Ten to eight; now Mnuhl had a reasonable chance to win.

Yet what irony, to prevail by the margin of one or two ships. There would soon be a new contingent of hostage transferees from one of the pacified segments, to overwhelm this one. This Andromedan would fetch victory even from this defeat. Then on to the dissolution of the Milky Way galaxy, its fundamental energies sucked into the maw of Andromedan civilization.

“God of Hosts–” Melody began, speaking in magnetic fluxes. What use, her prayer,
now
?

A ship loomed close. A magnetic tractor reached out, drawing her in. The impossible had happened: she was being rescued!

It was a Disk. She floated to its center, to the axis of its spin where its null-gravity aperture made docking convenient. How fortunate Captain Mnuhl's fleet had located her before she became irrevocably lost in the immensity of space! The Knyfh must have watched the action, figured out what she had done, and spread his ships to intercept the debris of the fissioning
Six of Atoms
. Mnuhl's species had affinity to the magnets, so he could have been quick to catch on to the magnet broadcast. Even so, to intercept her so neatly amidst a terminal battle—that was either incredible skill or blind luck.

The powerful magnetism brought her inside the lock. This was only the second Disk she had boarded; it differed from the other types of ships in subtle and unsubtle ways. With her magnet perception it hardly seemed Polarian.

She entered a long outslanting ramp. Here the surfaces were nonmetallic, so that she could not float under her own power; she rolled ignominiously down the incline at increasing velocity. Disk-creatures liked to roll, of course.

The slant leveled, and she halted. There was still no metal near. A powerful generalized magnetic field developed, urging her to a side passage. At last she came to an open chamber, and here she was allowed to come to rest.

“Welcome, Admiral,” a voice said.

Melody extended her perception field, and discovered that what she had heard was a Solarian translation. Beyond the translation machine was a spherical mass with six projecting short axles, a disk-shaped wheel on the end of each. The side wheels were used for locomotion; the bottom one was retracted somewhat, for gyroscopic balance and respiration; and the top one spun rapidly in the air to make the sounds of native speech. This was a high-Kirlian sapient entity.

It was of course no Polarian. This was in fact a ship of Sphere Sador, and this was a Sador host. Both Sador Disks had been taken hostage.

“Hello, Admiral Hammer.” She had, after all been chained.

PART III

MASTER OF ANDROMEDA

Chapter 19:

Bog of Jelly

::
what
?::

* * *

The £ plodded along the channel, her great paws setting down gently: one, two, three. She rotated slowly as she moved, and her mahout spun his wings and rotated in the opposite direction so as to keep facing forward. The elegance in this mode of travel was the hallmark of the planet.

Melody explored the mind of her new host. She had taken it hostage, but did not wish to damage it. This entity was Cnom the £, a new-mature female of gentle disposition. She was on her way to fetch the aromatic Deepwood that only her kind could collect, supervised by the mahout upon her back.

Cnom was more intelligent than her Dash mahout, but lacked the initiative or desire to oppose his will. The Dash were ambitious, organizing, accomplishment-oriented creatures, given to concerns about forthcoming millennia and matters of the distant past, while the £ preferred to take life as it came. Under Dash direction the planet had become the heart of a major Sphere if Andromeda, though it remained primitive. That pleased Cnom, and she was happy to contribute her physical labors to that end.

Melody was not so pleased. “This is a form of sapient slavery,” she told Cnom. “My culture disapproves of that.”

“Perhaps you should return to your culture,” the £ suggested amicably.

“I hope to do that. But it is not feasible at the moment.” Melody explained how she had been captured by a quadpoint in the Milky Way galaxy, and transferred to this planet as prisoner. But by willing herself to arrive elsewhere than intended, she had landed in an unplanned host. “You see, my galaxy is at war with Andromeda. I regret imposing on you, but it is essential that I recover by freedom.” She did not choose to clarify how important her freedom was; after all, she was not at all sure that she could do anything to save her galaxy now. But she had to keep trying.

How rapidly would the hostages get the energy-transfer equipment set up? How could she prevent it, alone, in an alien galaxy?

Yet Flint of Outworld had succeeded, even after he had died in the Hyades. His aura had carried on long enough to neutralize the enemy agent. Melody was not even dead yet; surely she had a chance.

Cnom marched on, unperturbed by the intrusion of another mind. Melody realized that this was because of the £ relationship with the Dash. An alien personality within the mind was little different from one perched upon the back.

Upon the back. Melody knew she would not be able to do much while the mahout remained. But without the mahout, her host would be deemed “wild” and subject to restriction until assigned a new mahout. That was the way of the planet.

She looked around. This was easy to do, since Cnom's three eyes were situated on the top, side, and bottom of the main torso. That was so the £ could examine the sky or upper sea, the ground, and the surrounding area for forage and danger, simultaneously. The side-eye brought in a full panoramic view as the body turned; only by closing it could she avoid that information.

The Dash, in contrast, carried all three of his eyes below, as flying creatures related to the world primarily in a downward direction. Of course the Dash no longer flew—not with their wings, anyway. Their brains had grown too large for the necessary economy of body mass. But perched on their £, they still were mainly concerned with a
down
focus.

The surrounding vegetation was luxuriant. Bright translucent feathers caught the sunlight, sending prismatic splays to the lower foliage. Each plant utilized a different wavelength; without the feather-separation, many would wither. Feather strands overhung the transport-channel, so that rainbow bands of color illuminated it. Dust motes picked it up, making tho view ahead and behind a marvel of visual sensation.